


Cloud

by piratemistress



Series: Pearls [9]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-05
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:58:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratemistress/pseuds/piratemistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is it, the beginning of the end... or the end of the beginning, or... whatever. On the way back from World's End, but differently, and why; later, Elizabeth learns how Jack came to save her life in Port Royal, and realizes nothing is as simple as it first seemed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
_Pearl of the cloud, born in the seventh layer of wind in the sky, gem of heaven so precious that all other gems, even covered in pure gold, could not amount to your value, pearl that falls like a hailstone only to be swept away by the denizens of heaven, pearl that shines brighter than fire, than the moon, the sun and thousands of stars, driving away the dark of even the blackest night on Earth, fall into our hands and we will save you, as you will save us.  
  
  
  
_ The ties a man had to life, Jack thought, were few, and fragile. As they sailed the _Pearl_ through waters as cold and unforgiving as death, Jack could tell little of his own condition. He was not quite dead, and yet he was not alive, at least, not yet. He was more alive than the people they'd passed in the boats, more alive than Weatherby Swann, and yet only by virtue of direction; he was headed one way, they another. They crossed in the middle, in a limbo of night and water, under a cloudless sky.  
  
Elizabeth was staying in the first mate's cabin, and as Jack made his way below, he heard the distinct sound of weeping. He paused. _Let her weep_ , he thought. She's caused enough suffering. But his feet wouldn't carry him farther; he turned, he descended the steps.  
  
The door was ajar about an inch, and a bit of light fell from within. He pushed the door slowly with his fingers, not knowing if Will might be inside, if he might be offering her comfort.  
  
The cabin was empty except for Elizabeth, sprawled on the bunk. He'd seen Will physically carry her from the deck after they'd passed her father, by clasping her in his arms and hauling her, screaming, below; that had been an hour before, and apparently he'd left her to rest, good boy that he was. Jack leaned a shoulder on the doorframe and looked at her, still dressed in her dark pirate's garb, her hair covering her face. The weeping had quieted in the time it took him to descend. He watched her breathing slow from audible sighs to quiet, deep breaths; a hand came up to wipe her eyes, before she turned on her side. Her hair fell away from her face, exposing her eyes; they were squeezed shut against the pain, the disbelief.  
  
His lips parted to speak; they shut again, silent. He hadn't spoken to her alone since they'd arrived on the shores of the Locker, and for once, Jack Sparrow was at a loss for words. She still hadn't seen him. He could leave, and she'd never know he'd been there. It would be quite a lot of effort to have to try to figure out what to say, under the circumstances. He wasn't feeling up to it.  
  
As he watched, her eyelids fluttered open, and she saw him. He considered turning tail and disappearing. “Jack?” she said, her voice broken.  
  
He said nothing. It wasn't really a question.  
  
She sat up, wiping her eyes hurriedly, looking anxious. “Jack, are you still... are you still... dead?”  
  
He considered her question; he held up one of hands in front of his face and examined it carefully. It was his hand, no question; the right shape, the right color, the right glint of lamplight on his rings. “I don't know, exactly,” he said quietly, turning his eyes back to her. “Why?”  
  
“I thought - I thought you might know - if there were a way to...” She shook her head quickly, as though trying to clear it. “...to go after him, to get him back.”  
  
_Oh_. So that was all. He was an instrument, a source of information. Naturally she'd be thinking about her father at a time like this, but still he hoped she might want to show... what? Remorse?  
  
“If I did, why would I tell you?” he said, and it sounded a little harsher than he'd meant it.  
  
Her eyes opened wide and she looked at him honestly, frankly. “Do you mean that there's nothing in it for you?”  
  
“Precisely.”  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don't suppose I want anything.” He glanced up. “Got my ship. Got a crew. Going to get my life back. I don't think you have anything I want.”  
  
She smiled a little, bitterly, giving a small sniff as though she were suppressing a laugh. “Is that so?” she said, as if she believed him, and didn't expect an answer. _So it's come to this_ , her tone seemed to say.  
  
He wasn't sure he believed himself. He looked her over, the face and hair and flashing eye that had haunted his experiences - hallucinations? - in the Locker. Perhaps this was all just another hallucination, an even more elaborate and cruel one. He had hungered but there was no food; he thirsted but there was no water. Next to that, even his desire for her seemed at once insignificant and hopeless.  
  
“What would you give, I wonder,” Jack mused aloud, watching her eyes come up to meet his.  
  
“What would it take?”  
  
“I asked you first.”  
  
“Yours was more of a statement.”  
  
His mouth opened and closed again, and he narrowed his eyes. It did annoy him quite a bit when she was right. As he pondered what to say next, she rose and adjusted her clothing, pulling her tunic tight around her.  
  
“You must understand,” she said. “At your age-” He cocked his head, bristling, but she went on. “-your... your parents wouldn't likely still be living? Your own father... he must be dead, by this time?” She spoke quietly, as not to be rude.  
  
He regarded her calmly. “Actually, he's not.”  
  
“He's alive?”  
  
“Unfortunately, some might say. And 'alive' is a relative term - consider our present conditions.”  
  
She acknowledged this last with a lift of her brows and a short nod to the side, her eyes searching as though far away. “But... it seems that if we can take you, there ought to be a way to take my father, too.”  
  
He looked into her eyes, and saw the determination, the confidence. He remembered suddenly that she was young; to the young everything was simple. Good, bad, right, wrong, night and day, and the shades of gray were never as apparent. The complications. He supposed he'd thought along similar lines, when he was her age. “Between what ought to be and what _is_ , there's the ocean, love,” he said, and he bit his tongue as he heard the last word, reminding himself it was what he always said, and yet this time, it was different. He hadn't _meant_ to say it.  
  
“I've crossed oceans before,” she said, holding his eyes. “So have you.”  
  
He stared back. He took a step closer. Her eyes darted from side to side, as though looking for an escape, but finding none, stood her ground. “Jack Sparrow, if you know a way to rescue my father, I'm asking you to tell me.”  
  
“And in return?”  
  
Her lips parted slightly, her breath quickened. She searched his eyes relentlessly. “If I have nothing you want, then I suppose I'm asking for a favor. Help. Freely given by good men, asking nothing in return.”  
  
“Is that what I am? A good man?” he said, moving closer still. She had been inching backwards, and she met the cabin wall, not far in the cramped space. He reached out an arm and splayed his fingers on the wall, leaning over her. “Are... you... certain?”  
  
Her eyes lowered, and rose slowly, ghosting over his form from his boots all the way to his neck, his face. His eyes. “I thought you were.”  
  
“ _Were_ being the key term, there. Seems being a good man - however occasionally - has got me into an awful lot of trouble. Got me killed, in fact.” He leaned in closer, until he could smell her hair. She drew back, her head coming to rest against the wall.  
  
“Jack - _don't_.”  
  
“Why not?” He angled his head, brushing his lips very lightly along the side of her jaw. Barely touching. He was pleased - _pleased_? a seemingly forgotten emotion- to feel a tiny shudder, a twitching of muscles and fair skin. “What are you going to do?” He brushed his mustache up over her cheek, sideways, until he was poised above her lips. “You can't kill me again,” he whispered. “I'm already dead.”  
  
“I thought you said you didn't know if you were still dead,” she whispered back, and he could almost feel the movements of her lips against his.  
  
“If I'm dead because I'm _here_ , then we're all dead, aren't we?”  
  
“I suppose. I don't feel any different.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“Jack, _please_.” She met his gaze, and he felt something stir at the pleading in her eyes. Another thing he thought he'd forgotten... sympathy. Even before the Locker. The farther they journeyed, the more he remembered. “Is there a way to bring my father back?”  
  
He had been trying to intimidate her, to see how she'd react, but he still heard her her words, her sincerity. Half of him wished to spare her this pain. But only half. He closed his eyes. “Tia said there wasn't.”  
  
“And do you agree? Do you believe her?”  
  
“This is a very messy business you're asking about, Elizabeth.”  
  
“Messy? They've murdered my father! Do you know a way to save him? Any way at all, anything?”  
  
Jack rubbed his temple, and reluctantly turned from her, while realizing there was little space to put between them in the cramped cabin. “I might. But it's nothing to be trifled with.”  
  
“Don't talk to me of _trifles_.” She pushed away from the wall, and he could feel her behind him. “I've sailed round the world to get _you_ , Jack Sparrow. Do you think you deserve life _more_?”  
  
“Matters not. Everyone dies. Who dies sooner than we expect, may not deserve to. Who lives on, may not deserve to, either.”  
  
“And which are you?”  
  
He smiled, ruefully, turning his chin to look at her over his shoulder. “Both, it seems.”  
  
“Then _do_ something. Do something to deserve the second chance you've been granted. Help me help my father. Please.”  
  
He regarded her, trying not to see the pain in her eyes. It was too much, really. The murderess herself was begging him...“I don't know that I can.”  
  
“Will you try?”  
  
“Why should I?”  
  
“Why not? Because of me? Because of what I did?” She advanced a step, shaking her head while meeting his eyes. “You can't go on blaming me. You _would have died_ , thanks to your own foolish agreement. All I did was make certain you didn't take the rest of us with you!”  
  
“That simple, eh?” He flung her statement away with a sweep of his hand. As he glared at her, he became aware of two things; one, she was right. Again. And two, it still stung.  
  
“Simple? Do you think it was easy, to know it was by my own hand? _Do_ you?”  
  
Jack closed his eyes again, as if it would defend him from the anguish in her voice. He didn't want her remorse, he told himself he didn't _care_ any more... in another second he'd moved to push past her, heading for the door.  
  
“Jack, please. Please.” She caught his elbow with both her hands, even as he moved past. “Tell me what can be done. Help me.”  
  
He looked pointedly at her hands on his arm, wrapped around the faded dark cloth of his jacket. He looked at her face, the tears brimming though she blinked them away. “I'll think on it,” he finally said, reaching over to unwrap her fingers from his arm.  
  
“All right,” she said with a sigh, looking at him warily. She'd hoped for more, he could tell. A sworn promise to right the wrongs of the world, or die trying... but that just wasn't him. Elizabeth might want to see him as her hero, continue to believe him one, but he wasn't sure he could be that, for her, any more. He turned to go, but she called after him, “Not going to set a price? No demands on my person as a bargaining chip?”  
  
He smiled, turning to smile at her. “Disappointed?”  
  
“Hardly.”  
  
“Liar.” He took a step back toward her, and her chin came up as she tensed, bracing for... what? Battle? “You've a short memory, then.”  
  
She wet her lips. “Some things are better off forgotten.”  
  
“Undoubtedly,” he said, and then reached for her shoulders and pulled her close with one hard yank, at the same time he lowered his head and captured her lips with his. A soft whimper as he explored her lips with his own, testing their firmness and softness and how they felt against her teeth, how they tasted on his tongue. But he released her soon, and raised his head to see her brows knitted in confusion, her cheeks gaining a hint of a pink.  
  
She wanted more; he could tell. And so he left her to realize it, as he opened the door behind him and whirled through it, shutting it firmly behind him.  
  
He leaned for a moment on the outside, closing his eyes, breathing deep to still the rapid acceleration of his heart. Whatever it was he was recovering from, it was another sensation he thought he'd forgotten.  
  
  
  
He climbed the stairs to the deck and entered the captain's cabin, still in shambles from its encounter with the Kraken, but with the addition of a line drawn in chalk down the center of the room. The line began between the blown-out windows, and trailed across the floor and over the table, the middle of a wooden chair and all the way to the door.  
  
Barbossa lounged on the bunk, as he examined the charts in his hands, held over his head. “Get out,” Jack said to him.  
  
Barbossa's lips split into a grin and he laughed. “Trying to oust me from my half o' the cabin? What are ye planning to do?”  
  
Jack stared at him. “An act which you surely won't wish to witness.”  
  
There was a pause, and Barbossa's grin curled into a grimace as he sat up and stood from the bunk. “I'll give ye five minutes - ought to be long enough,” he said as he headed for the door, charts under his arm. “Oh, and Jack,” he said over his shoulder, “do stay on _your_ side for the duration.”  
  
When Barbossa had shut the door behind him, Jack pulled out the chalked chair and sat upon it, thrusting his hand into his pocket. “Where is it, where...” He pulled a small satchel from where it was tied to his belt, opening it and dumping its contents on the table. A few old coins, bits of eight, a lock of red hair, a shark's tooth, a few other odd bits... “Ah. “ Finally he saw what he sought: a small hourglass in a brass frame, no bigger than a man's thumb. Black sand inside was speckled with light, swirling and moving on its own. He picked it up hesitantly.  
  
He held it in his palm, closing his eyes. It would probably be of no use. It wasn't of any use to him the last time, when he'd wanted out of his bargain with Jones, but the time before that... He held it in front of his eyes, peering through it at the curved and stretched cabin beyond it. With sudden determination, he flipped it upside down, and watched as the black sand trickled into the bottom of the tiny vial.  
  
As the sand fell, the room grew dark, and the stretched distortion of being seen through the curving glass became more and more pronounced, and the room darkened and swelled and Jack felt dizzy as it fell away.  
  
He found himself in a familiar room - a temple. Straw mats were spread on the floor, and a man sat, cross-legged, before several lit candles. He wore black. Paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and all was quiet.  
  
The man was bald, and yet his white beard and mustache hung down almost to his bent knees. His head was inclined forward, and his palms met in the center of his chest. “Jack Sparrow,” he said slowly and with a slow nod.  
  
“Hello. Long time, no... something. Still going by 'One'?”  
  
One acquiesced with a tilt of his head. “I am surprised to see you. The last time you visited me you asked my help in avoiding death.”  
  
“Yes, well,” Jack said, curling his feet beneath him and sitting opposite the man. “As it turns out, it couldn't be avoided. But it may be overcome.”  
  
The man said nothing, but waited.  
  
“I've come to ask about another matter,” Jack said. “One that isn't bound by any previous bargain that I'm aware of.”  
  
“Speak.”  
  
“A man is dead.”  
  
“Many men are dead.”  
  
“A particular man.”  
  
“One of importance to you?”  
  
Jack considered this. “Not of particular importance to me, but of importance to someone of some importance to me. As it were.”  
  
“You wish him returned?”  
  
“What would it cost?”  
  
One seemed to consider this for a long moment, closing his eyes, as the candles flickered. “A life for a life, is the price, and that is almost impossible to arrange, as both parties must be willing.”  
  
“Then it's as I thought, then,” Jack said, looking aside in defeat. “No wonder people don't go around talking about you all the time.”  
  
“I am not spoken of because my most delicate arrangements are secret,” One said, opening his eyes to look at Jack. “Such is my art that even my art is concealed. Have you ever experienced a moment you're certain has already occurred?”  
  
“Hasn't everyone? Good ol' deja-vu?”  
  
One smiled, mysteriously. “That is because the moment _has_ already happened. But something may be different. If a bargain is struck and a change is made, no one will ever know.”  
  
“All well and good, mate, but as I haven't got any willing martyrs, here, I'd best be going.”  
  
“There are many kinds of lives, Jack Sparrow,” One said, and Jack paused in his motion of getting up.  
  
“I'm listening.”  
  
“A man has the life that he leads, himself. Another in his descendants, who carry his blood. Still another in his name, his legacy.”  
  
“And some say he dies only to return again, for a different life,” Jack said, eyeing the man warily. “I still have nothing to put on the table--” He glanced down at the candles on the mats, then back up- “- if there were one.”  
  
“Ah, but you do.” One regarded him, his dark eyes steady. “Your legacy is larger than most. Stories that will be written as history. Your legacy is powerful, indeed.”  
  
“It is?” Jack said, brightening. “Well, that's good news. I always wanted to be immortal, although that's seeming less likely, now.”  
  
One still looked at him calmly. “I am told by the Powers that you may trade your legacy for the life of this... less important man.”  
  
“Trade... my legacy? My place in history? What's that mean, that no one will remember me after I'm gone?”  
  
One was silent for a moment, and Jack got to his feet, beginning to pace the stone floor of the temple. One's voice followed him. “There will be no mention of you in history. None of your famous deeds, your legends. Your songs will be forgotten. Not everything can be controlled - someone may dream of you, hundreds of years from now, only he will think he created you himself. There may be stories, but no one will believe they are really true.”  
  
Jack stroked his beard, his brows knitted, his eyes wide with concern. Was he really considering... “And in return?”  
  
“The life of Weatherby Swann. For twenty-five years or so; then he will die an untroubled death.”  
  
“I hadn't told you who he was.”  
  
“You didn't need to,” said One. “They know.”  
  
“Do they,” Jack mused, pacing the perimeter of the temple, hands clasped behind his back. “So if I were to accept this trade - my legacy, _not_ my life, and I haven't said I'm accepting - what will happen? We'll pull him from the water?”  
  
“No. It will be as though it never occurred. No one will remember his death. Not even you will remember.” One caught his eye from across the candles. “You will forget even our conversation here, just as you yourself will be forgotten when you die.”  
  
Jack turned to him with a lifted eyebrow. “No word on the when-and-where of that, eh?”  
  
One shook his head, slowly. “It is a fair bargain, but one that will reap you no rewards, Jack Sparrow. She will never know of your sacrifice on her behalf. Not even _you_ will know it. It will fade from your mind like a night's dream.”  
  
“Well, that's no fun,” Jack lamented, coming to stand in front of One again. “Once in a very great while, I do something magnanimous, and no one will ever know of it?”  
  
“That is the fairest bargain I can negotiate.”  
  
Jack turned away again, taking slow, meditative steps. _No one would ever know_... except he would, if he let the opportunity pass. He probably should let it pass, let dead men die when it was their time to die.  
  
The trouble was that there were so many fathers taken from their children. He thought of them all. Barbossa and little Helen. Bootstrap, and Will. Then there was Alberts... Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Easter, the little girl that should have had her father. Who needed him. Elizabeth was grown... surely she didn't need him that way... but the pain, her screams, her loss... he could hardly bear remembering it, and yet he had been telling himself he really didn't care for her any more...  
  
He pictured going back, empty-handed. _“I'm sorry,” he'd say as he saw the last vestiges of her hope fade from her eyes. “I couldn't bring him back to you.”  
  
“No less than I expected,” she'd say bitterly, turning her back to shield her tears from his view. “Wish it had been you, instead.”  
  
_ No, she wouldn't say that. Wouldn't feel that way. Would she?  
  
“Tell me,” Jack said, opening his eyes to look at One again. “What would happen if I didn't? A little more information's fair in going into an agreement, don't you think?”  
  
“What is it you wish to know?”  
  
“Assume things stay as they are. I _do_ end up captaining the _Pearl_ when this business is all over, don't I?”  
  
One shook his head.  
  
Jack raised a brow and curled his lip in disgust. “No? Elizabeth - notwithstanding the pain of her father's death, gets the happy wedding she always wanted, followed by many years of joy with her noble beau?”  
  
One shook his head again, somberly.  
  
Jack stared, aghast, both brows now curving upward in dismay. “Well, this isn't turning out well at all, is it? What about me? If I don't get the _Pearl_ , do I, perhaps, get the _Dutchman_?”  
  
Again, a shake of the head.  
  
“No?” There was a pause. No _Pearl_ ; no _Dutchman_. What kind of legacy would he have, anyway? He considered One's earlier words on the subject of legacies; he suddenly thought about descendants. If his deeds never amounted to anything, perhaps he'd manage to at least pass on some worthwhile traits to posterity. His wit. His looks. Though they'd need a good balancing with something else... integrity, perhaps. Forthrightness; courage. He supposed any little ones would have to get _that_ from the mother, as they seemed to be lacking in him. Though he'd hardly ever given it any thought. Children unnerved him. But then, if they were _his_...  
  
And then, along those lines, there was only one question left, though he guessed he already knew the answer. “Do I get... _her_?”  
  
One shook his head very slowly, from one side to the other.  
  
Jack snorted. “Bollocks to _that_. Seal it.”  
  
“Are you _sure_? Her father's life guarantees nothing.”  
  
“What will it change?”  
  
“That, I cannot say. Could be much, could be little or nothing. You must be prepared. It might not turn out better than it would have if he died.”  
  
Jack pursed his lips. “I'll take my chances, mate.” He extended his hand to shake.  
  
“The real pirate Jack Sparrow will cease to exist after you die. Your name would have been next to Drake, to Bonny, to Teach. Is this your wish? To erase yourself from history, from the future?”  
  
Jack still looked expectantly at One, his hand in midair. “If it'll make the present less than unbearable, most assuredly.”  
  
“You must also give over the hourglass. This is your third visit - and your last, according to the rules.”  
  
Jack sighed. “That, too?” He picked up the hourglass from where it lay on the mat in front of him. “Well, I would say it's been a pleasure. But it hardly matters, since I'm doomed to forget it, aren't I?  
  
One smiled, and held out his palm for the hourglass. “I will remember for you, Jack Sparrow.”  
  
“At least somebody will.” When he placed the object in the other man's hand, the temple swirled and faded to black.  
  
* * *  
  
  
Jack awoke in the bunk aboard the _Black Pearl_ , sweating profusely. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten there, and he sat up, touching a palm to his temple. His head throbbed. Rum?  
  
Gibbs burst in suddenly, loudly. Jack reeled. “Cap'n, y'ought to come see this. We're passing a great load o' dead men. Right eerie.”  
  
Something made Jack ask, “Anyone we know?”  
  
Gibbs shook his head.  
  
“Just a moment, then, Mr. Gibbs,” Jack said, and Gibbs exited with a nod.  
  
Jack placed his feet on the ground to stand, and promptly toppled over.  
  
* * *  
  
  
In the dark sky over the ocean, stars appeared suspended between broad clouds that crossed the moon. The lanterns were lit up on deck; everyone had departed for the hammocks except for those on watch, and below decks, within the walls formed by the hull and bulkheads, Elizabeth was alone. She was preparing for battle.  
  
She balanced on the balls of her bare feet on the wooden floor, the way she'd been shown, and with her toe propelled her sword into the air in front of her. Lantern light glinted off the blade in a sharp line, just before it went wide left and clattered to the wooden floor of the hold; she sighed.  
  
It was late, almost midnight, and she was exhausted. Night and day had blended into one long day; that morning they'd turned the ship upside down at sunset and sunrise, and brought Jack back into the world of the living. They were now headed for an island to re-provision, which meant that battle lay ahead.  
  
Will was still angry with her, leery of her. She was certain that if she tried to sleep, it would elude her, so she went below and began to work on her swordsmanship - swordswomanship? - and she was now thoroughly determined to get this right. It might make the difference between life and death. Life and death didn't seem so different any more; or perhaps it was that they seemed to be connected. Inseparable.  
  
Pushing back the wide sleeves of her black tunic, she placed the sword in front of her foot and stood, feet apart, feeling balance through her entire body. She counted; she breathed. She lunged and flicked the sword handle with her foot. This time it went wide right, just slipping through her grasp, and once again landing with an ominous _clang_ on the floor. “Damn,” she said as she pushed her now-loose hair out of her eyes. She rubbed her temple, a little unnerved that she'd begun to swear - God knew what the pirates would have her saying, soon - but reminded herself there was no one around to hear, and scooped up the sword to position it in front of her again.  
  
She closed her eyes. She concentrated. She struck out with her toe, and with a _snap_ of metal the sword leapt into the air, and a second later she was shocked to feel its heavy hilt in the palm of her hand. Her eyes shot open and she gazed at it in wonder. She'd done it.  
  
“Third time's the charm,” drawled a voice from behind her.  
  
Jack.  
  
She closed her eyes again, swallowing nervously. This was not how she wanted to face him, alone, vulnerable, tired, at her own breaking point. He'd jibed at her on the beach, glared at her across the deck, told them all how she'd sealed his fate... and she didn't bother to deny it, only kept her distance and went about her tasks. It wasn't as if there weren't larger things happening than a private... disagreement... between her and Jack. They hadn't been alone, all this time. She supposed it was time for them to have it out.  
  
She forced herself to turn around and face him, and saw him propped crookedly in the against a bulkhead, a bottle dangling precariously from his fingers, the corners of his lips turned up in an amused smirk much reduced in benevolence by the dangerous gleam in his eyes. He was dressed in the same clothing as before, but he'd lost the jacket and loosened his shirt and tunic. He was standing in the shadows, and save for his bright eyes he might have blended entirely into the night.  
  
As she looked at him, she concluded she'd been expecting this, a confrontation with him. Was this really the first time they'd been alone? Vague images flashed across her mind... her tiny cabin... him in it, pleading, tears. No; that must have been a dream.  
  
“Thought you'd gone to bed,” she said numbly, watching as he peeled himself from the bulkhead and swaggered in her direction, beads swaying into place as he moved. It was immediately apparent that he was drunk. More so than she'd seen before. Naturally, the first thing Jack would do upon returning to life would be get himself completely drunk. He must have stashed away a bottle of rum for himself for just such an occasion.  
  
“Did you? Sorry to disappoint.” He stopped a few feet away from her and eyed the sword she still held grasped in her right hand. She hadn't realized she'd been gripping it so tightly her knuckles whitened, until he nodded toward it. “Planning to use that now?”  
  
She breathed through slightly parted lips, taking in the bottle, his fierce stare, the half-mocking twist of his full lips; she remembered the pistol he'd trained on her that very morning. “If I must.”  
  
His smile broadened a bit, and he held up the bottle, his hand making a suddenly wide arc through the air that made her flinch. “I recommend a bit of rum to calm those nerves, me girl.”  
  
“I've no need of it, thank you. You seem to have had enough for the both of us,” she said, taking a step sideways.  
  
He matched her step in the opposite direction, slowly, almost imperceptibly, and she realized they'd begun to circle one another. “Oh, but I'd say you _do_ need it, Lizzy darling,” he said softly, keeping his eyes on hers as they crossed one foot over another. “It warms the blood, see? And _you_ \- “ he lunged forward suddenly, and she raised her sword with a _whoosh_ that was followed by the dull clink against the rum bottle he held up between them - “need to warm that cold, cold blood you seem to have.”  
  
She froze, locking eyes with him, as he slid the mouth of the bottle down her sword until it reached her now-trembling hand, a high metallic scrape echoing in the empty hold. He then reached out and deliberately pinched the end of her sword with his thumb and forefinger, and slid that, too, down the sword. “Cold as this blade,” he murmured, and then his hand had reached hers, and he wrapped his hand around her wrist and yanked her toward him with a single, hard pull.  
  
Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp as she found herself flush against him, her sword blade against his shoulder, trapped between them with her arm, the bottle somewhere at her back in his other hand. Something about the desperation in his expression stirred her fear into guilt, and she knew he was only punishing her for what she'd done. Somehow she had to make him understand. “I'm...” She wet her lips nervously, swallowing and forcing herself to meet his eyes as she willed her voice to be as steady and sincere as possible. “I'm not the monster you take me for.”  
  
“Never said a monster. A bloody pirate. A cold-blooded pirate,” he whispered almost against her lips.  
  
She closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears at the back of them. She wanted desperately for him to know what it cost her to sacrifice him, that she'd only done it because she thought there was no other choice. He thought her cold... she opened her mouth to speak but found herself leaning in toward his lips, toward the faint hot breath that was scented with liquor... _I'm not cold_ , she wanted to scream, feeling a blush stain her cheeks and a fresh line of perspiration make its way down her spine. _I wish I were_.  
  
She laid three fingers along his cheek and jaw, more to steady herself then to attempt to soothe him, and took a deep breath, feeling the bristles of his mustache brush her upper lip as she whispered, “I only did what I had to...” Her voice became more plaintive, almost quavering as she said, “In my place you'd have done no less.”  
  
She felt rather than saw him smile, but it wasn't a gentle smile, it was more of a baring of the teeth, and she couldn't have missed the menace in his reply.  
  
“Quite right,” he said without dropping the smile, breathing instead across it, greedily consuming the very air that had just left her lips. “In your place... I'd have done much, _much_ more.”  
  
A long moment passed as he held perfectly still, her hand on his face, his hand on her wrist, pinning it to his chest, her hand holding the sword, his other clutching the bottle; they were almost completely entangled in each other, and he'd said he would have done more and so help her, she _wanted_ more. She wanted to cross swords with him, continue their dance and see where it led. She wanted to taste ruin and redemption at once. She wanted absolution from the mouth of a pirate.  
  
She leaned in and up only a little more - for they were so close that not more than a hair's breadth separated them - and waited to see if he'd seize the opportunity, if he'd kiss her. He didn't. He only breathed, and gripped her wrist a little harder. Her breath caught as she hovered on the brink, unsure whether to pull hard on her sword and use it to defend herself, or let it go and surrender utterly... and so she settled for a compromise: holding tight to the handle of the sword, she pulled him the last half an inch closer and fitted her lips to his. One thing she had realized, of late, was that if she wanted something, she would do better to take it herself.  
  
For a second nothing changed; she was only aware of feeling a little dizzy at the warm touch of his lips on hers, and she wondered whether he meant to humiliate her this way, to allow her to throw herself at him completely and then stand back and laugh, and perhaps it would be no less than she deserved. The burn of shame was already creeping into her cheeks as the long seconds passed with no response, a frustrated whimper escaping her throat as the taste of him seeped slowly onto her tongue, and it was as familiar and alarming as the smell of smoke.  
  
But when she touched her tongue lightly to those firm lips that refused to kiss her back, everything crumbled easily as wet sand and Jack was parting his lips with a groan and angling his head to capture her tongue and draw it into his mouth, and she was lost to it. Jack was most certainly alive, now, and as he pressed against her she could feel his body tensing, his pace of his heartbeat hurtling forward to a breakneck speed, as hers was... She hadn't known a kiss could be like this, burning and drowning at once, fire and tidal wave.  
  
She didn't realize she'd relaxed her grip on the sword until she heard it hit the floor between their feet with dull thump, startling them both. They sprang apart, gasping for air, and Elizabeth glanced down and then back up at Jack.  
  
He smiled again, but it was a slow, lazy, half-lidded smile that set her insides to simmering. “Well, and you haven't even chained me to anything,” he said, releasing her wrist and extending both hands beside his shoulders in an open shrug that sloshed the liquid in the bottle. He bowed to set down the rum beside her sword and then looked up at her as he straightened, murmuring, “Not so cold after all?”  
  
Before she could reply he'd drawn her back into his arms and covered her mouth with his, and she was kissing him back desperately, wanting more, more, _more_. Wanting to know what came next, wanting to memorize his taste, wanting to forget the world and its battles and drown herself in Jack. One thought seared her, even through the haze that had gathered in her mind and the fierce, strange need that had settled in her belly. She tore herself away, tossing her head back, gasping for air.  
  
She intended it to be clear, somber, polite, even, but she was surprised to hear the words leave her mouth in a single rush of breath: “Does-this-mean-you-forgive-me-?”  
  
Jack lifted his kohl-heavy lids and regarded her, smoke and fire in his stare, before a single finger stroked her cheek, traced her jaw and came up to settle briefly in the hollow of her lower lip before his forefinger and thumb pinched her chin to force her to look at him. “I haven't forgotten, make no mistake.” It was a soft threat, tightly leashed, that seemed to war with something else as he tilted his head, looking at her from beneath suddenly dropping lids. “Let's just put that aside for the moment, shall we?”  
  
This time when he kissed her it was a deep plunge, and when his tongue entwined with hers she felt it all the way to her toes, every nerve sizzling and sparking. His arms fastened around her back, crushing her to him, and she reveled in it, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt and her bare toes curling against the floor. She heard herself moan - only a little, and softly - but still she wondered, only for the briefest of seconds, why Will's kisses never felt like this. Will had had years and years to nurture his affection for her, and Jack only perhaps one or so, and yet in this one kiss of Jack's there was more barely restrained, fierce desire than in all of Will's kisses combined... _Will_.  
  
At the thought she uncurled her fingers into flat palms and pushed him away, a panicked reflex, and his lips left hers too suddenly. He stumbled back slightly with a hesitant smile. “Sanity returns,” he said, touching the back of his hand to his mouth gently.  
  
She fought the urge to lick her lips free of his taste. “Will is here with us,” she said between labored breaths. “He may not understand everything I've done, but I'll not dishonor him.”  
  
“He is right up those steps on the crew deck, sleeping like a babe,” Jack replied, fixing her with a curious gaze. “He has been all this time. Why didn't you protest a few moments ago, I wonder? It can't that my forgiveness was so important to you?”  
  
From his tone, she surmised he didn't think so, but she turned away and picked up the sword, sliding it into place on her belt. Her heart still beat a merciless staccato inside her chest, and she suspected that Jack attributed her easy capitulation to excitement alone. She wasn't sure what was true, any more. Over her shoulder she said, “Someday perhaps you'll understand what it means to want someone's forgiveness.”  
  
She heard him chuckle as he crossed the room away from her. “Perhaps,” he said, and then he was gone.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Title of Series:** Pearls **Author:** Lady P (piratemistress)  
**Disclaimer** : These characters aren't stolen, they're just borrowed, borrowed without permission; for personal, not commercial purposes.  
**Beta Extraordinaire:** Kind editor and friend lady_di75. Yes, she really read all 132,000 words. She deserves a medal.  
**Tagline:** In a backward tale, love is only the beginning.  
**Summary of Series:** Jack's past adventures as captain of the _Black Pearl_ and after weave in and out of his adventures with Elizabeth in the years to follow.  
**Pairing:** J/E for the series. Assorted OCs and canon characters come and go.  
**Previous Chapters:  
** \------  
**Chapter:** Nine, **Title:** Cloud (2/4); will post one part each day for the next 2 days.  
**Chapter Summary:** This is it, the beginning of the end... or the end of the beginning, or... whatever. On the way back from World's End, but differently, and why; later, Elizabeth learns how Jack came to save her life in Port Royal, and realizes nothing is as simple as it first seemed.  
**Rating:** MA/NC-17.  
_A/N: Some juicy stuff here, but I had to break the chapter up somewhere; if you’d prefer to read one long uninterrupted scene, come back tomorrow so you can read 2 immediately followed by 3. Otherwise, enjoy.  
  
  
_ Cloud, Part 2  
  
Over Port Royal, there were clouds obscuring the stars and moon, dark ones, and Elizabeth gave up staring out and turned to her bed. In a way it was hard for her to believe she was going to sleep in it. Months had passed since she'd slept in her own bed, and when she left it the morning of her failed wedding, she hardly thought she'd return to it so soon.  
  
Low and distant, thunder rumbled. Elizabeth felt the sound in her chest, in her belly, and she absently traced her fingertips over her stomach through her nightgown as she walked to the bed.  
  
The ultimate irony was that having arrived in her featherbed, finally, after everything, she ought to be exhausted enough to sleep for a week. The entire week would be preferable - that's how long she had to wait for her second attempt at a wedding. Mr. Turner - she forced the word 'Bootstrap' from her lips when she had to - had gotten a little banged up in the battle and all of his sea-change was starting to wear off. Will was enamored of the idea of having him present at the ceremony.  
  
No violins. No fancy tea, nor china - just she and Will and their fathers at the church. Having it to look forward to, she ought to drift into peaceful sleep and dream of happiness to come.  
  
She couldn't sleep. She was achy. She was tired. She was... _bothered_.  
  
And what was this odd sensation, that had settled above her hips and seemed to churn, slowly, like the whirlpool, pulling everything into it? Nerves. Jitters. Anticipation, perhaps.  
  
She considered Will, how happy he was, how they'd spent the evening together with her father when all she really wanted was to be _alone_ with him. Alone, alone. He didn't seem to notice. She was restless - she paced, she fidgeted, she scratched her cheek with a forefinger while staring out to sea. She was waiting for something to happen. She didn't like waiting. She liked to make things happen in a timely fashion.  
  
She wanted to take Will aside in the shadows, kiss him until that wide-eyed stare melted from his face and he responded to her, kissed her back, made her feel sharply desired. Made her feel like... _don't think it_.  
  
Too late. An image of Jack had risen unbidden in her mind, and she pushed it down with a painful swallow. It was likely she would never see him again. After the journey back, and everything that happened, she and Jack were more or less back to what one might call normal; they didn't talk much, and they weren't really alone. There was an uneasy truce between them. Rather like the mistrustful truce between Jack and Barbossa, who had stayed behind when they'd escorted Tia back upriver, muttering something about debts and unfinished business. At the thought, she was slightly nauseated; no, surely Jack didn't consider her as ruthless, as incapable of loyalty as Barbossa. Surely not.  
  
As she and Will disembarked on the docks near Port Royal, she had glanced back over her shoulder. Jack was looking straight at her from his place at the wheel, watching her go, likely out of his life forever. In his eyes, at that moment, the sadness of all the world... and then everything seemed to stop as their gazes met and locked; he saw she was looking back at him, too. The sorrow in his eyes melted, or perhaps just shifted, changed shape, and his eyes sparkled and his lips twisted into a knowing smile... the look in his eyes dared her to look away, at the same time it frightened her a little in its intensity. Her chest tightened; she found she couldn't look away. If Will hadn't caught her elbow, saying, “Careful,” she would have tripped on the lip of the gangplank and fallen square on her face.  
  
Thunder rumbled again, and she sighed in her bed, wondering when the lightning and rain would arrive. She felt the gathering tension everywhere in her body, unsure what it meant, what to do. She only hoped something would quiet it, ease it... _fill_ it. Perhaps then she could sleep.  
  
“Think we'll have a storm tonight,” said a voice from the shadows.  
  
She sat bolt upright, every nerve in her body on instant alert. She was surprised to discover her right hand at her hip, for a sword no longer there. Peering into the darkness, she could just discern a shape in the corner by the balcony doors, leaning against the wall.  
  
Had she gone mad? Or had she somehow conjured him? The same sword hand found its way to her chest, where she felt the staccato pulse of her startled heart against her palm. She forced herself to breathe in, to exhale, as she assimilated the fact of the matter: Jack Sparrow was in her room.  
  
After a moment, she gathered enough breath to speak. “How... how did you get in here?”  
  
“I climbed up to the balcony. Lovely view from your room, but once a man scales the gate at the end of the drive, entering the house isn't like breaching the walls of Troy. Not exactly... impregnable,” he finished with a quick glance down Elizabeth's form.  
  
“You could be arrested. Shot. Hanged.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “Only if they know I'm here.”  
  
“I'll scream.”  
  
“Well then, quit wasting your breath and get to it, love - I haven't got all night.”  
  
That seemed to give her pause, and she sat up straighter in the bed, drawing her nightgown higher on her shoulders - not as though Jack hadn't seen her in all manners of dress. But his eyes upon her were beginning to make her feel more exposed - warmer - as though the noontime sun were upon her skin and she had need of shade. “All right, then. What do you want?”  
  
He crossed the room in three large strides, removing his hat and tossing it - awfully presumptuously, it seemed to Elizabeth - upon her bedside table, next to the lamp, where it slid across the table and fell on the floor. Jack didn't seem to notice - he occupied himself with taking the liberty of drawing the curtain aside completely, and sitting - _sitting!_ \- upon her bed, easy as he pleased. Her mouth opened to protest but he cut her off before she could speak.  
  
“I want an answer to a question: the question of why you really came to rescue me.”  
  
She blinked at him. “You left the ship, crossed the town, climbed the gate, entered my room at risk to life and limb, all to ask a _question_?”  
  
His eyes were friendly dark-rimmed crescents as he smiled and said, “Not exactly - I got your father's room first, by mistake, but fortunately, he's sleeping rather soundly.”  
  
“My _father's_ \- !” She threw back the covers and sprang out of bed, padding quickly to the door, which she opened as quietly as possible. She peered down the dark hallway. All was dark at the opposite end of the house where she had sent her father to bed with a brandy to calm his nerves, which had been quite unsteady of late. Most of the servants had also left during her father's imprisonment and disappearance; only two remained, an old couple who'd served them for years, and one of them was nearly deaf. Satisfied that no one stirred, she closed the door slowly and allowed the knob to slip gently through her fingers into place.  
  
She turned to see Jack lounging comfortably on her bed, hands folded behind his head, a smug expression on his face. The thought occurred to her that she could use some aqua vitae to steady her own nerves. Rum might be nice - but that, like the sword, was no longer close at hand.  
  
She sighed, tucking hair behind her ear, and murmured mostly to herself, “Jack Sparrow, what am I to do with you?”  
  
One dark eyebrow shot upward. “Captain, and depends on if you'd like to do something we've done before, or try something else.”  
  
_Something they'd done before_... she folded her arms protectively across her chest. “You may not be aware of this - or perhaps you've forgotten - but proper and customary social interactions do _not_ include the sort of things we've been doing. You may as well be gone from my bedchamber, as there'll be no stowing away, singing, sword-fighting, swimming, sailing or... er, swilling.”  
  
“Not to be alphabetically clumsy... but you forgot... _kissing_.”  
  
The way his voice wrapped around that last word made it sort of float in the air between them, and suddenly her lips felt heavy and moist as they had after that fateful kiss, and the stolen ones after. She gathered her wits as quickly as possible, shaking off the hypnotic effect. “There _won't_ be any of that, either.”  
  
“Pity.” He cocked his head as he looked at her in the near-dark, another slow rumble of thunder sounding somewhere outside. He reached out and patted a space on the bed next to him. “Just a brief talk, then?”  
  
She eyed him warily, moving to light a lamp on her bedside table. “Accepting an invitation into bed with you would seem conducive to more than conversation, wouldn't you say?”  
  
“Only if that's what you really want, Elizabeth. _I_ only want an answer to my question.” He patted the space again, and she sat gingerly on the edge of her bed, looking at him in the lamplight. His dark hair looked very fine outlined against her soft, costly pillows, she noticed with a twinge of alarm. She liked the look of him, there. A little too much.  
  
“Never had a man in your bed, I suppose,” Jack said as if reading her mind, and it unnerved her completely when he did that. He did it much more often than she'd prefer.  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“Will could've climbed that trellis and gotten in here ages ago. Wonder why he didn't?”  
  
The man's ability to probe her tender spots made her grind her back teeth, but she only said, “Because Will has a sense of _decency_.”  
  
“Yes, well, try to forgive him - we all have our shortcomings.” A genuine grin spread across Jack's face as he adjusted his head on the pillow beside her. He then turned his head to look at her again, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Ever think about what it'll be like?”  
  
With a look of thorough exasperation at Jack, she said, “Whether I do or not isn't any of your...”  
  
“You _do_ ,” he said in a more awed whisper. “I'll bet you do. You've told me as much.”  
  
“I never said - “  
  
“You didn't have to,” he countered, reaching out to pull an errant lock out of her face and smooth it to the side, a gesture which surprised her in its tenderness almost enough to outweigh her annoyance at his ability to know her mind. “Which brings me back to the question at hand, actually.”  
  
“What - which question?” Hearing herself stumble, she bit her lip in frustration; his nearness seemed to rob her of her ability to think.  
  
He smiled again, and it was moonlight slipping lightly across the waves. “I wanted to know,” and he leaned closer, propping his arm casually upon the pillow, “why it was that you came to save me. Was it only guilt?”  
  
She eyed the easy angle of his elbow, how it sank into the soft cushion, feeling a bit softer herself. _It's really not proper for him to be in my bed_ , was her immediate, somewhat unrelated thought, but pointing that out would be more or less useless, she surmised, since he was, after all, already in her bed. With her... “...What was the question?”  
  
He cocked his head, two shadows forming above his brows in a slightly perplexed expression. “Something wrong with your hearing?”  
  
“One does... acquire the habit of tuning out your prattle, Jack.”  
  
“Or maybe it's just that you don't _want_ to answer.”  
  
“And why wouldn't I?”  
  
“Well - you don't mind if I take my boots off, do you, darling? It's quite a walk up here from shore - “ He sat up and bent to remove his boots without acknowledging her lips parting to reply that he need not remove _any_ of his clothing in her bedroom. “The way I see it, there's one of two reasons. One, the answer to that question's one you'd rather not give, and you haven't had time to think of a good enough lie to cover it.” One boot hit the floor with a gentle thud. “The other-” and the second boot joined its partner, before he leaned back into the bed and turned onto his stomach, crawling alongside her with a suddenly predatory expression, “ - is that there's something you'd _rather_ be doing, eh?”  
  
Her eyes opened wide as she felt his warmth next to her through the thin fabric of her nightdress. She stared, wary yet fascinated, as he lifted a single hand and brought it down, slowly, to the bare skin of her neck above the neckline of her nightgown. A finger - brown from sun and dirt - bent and the knuckle painted a line along her collarbone and down her chest, drawing all of her breath along with it.  
  
He bent near her, a curious expression turning down the corners of his eyes. “Why haven't you screamed yet, Elizabeth?”  
  
_Because I can't breathe_ , she thought, watching as his finger uncurled and then shot up to tip her chin toward him.  
  
“Cat got your tongue, perhaps?”  
  
“My tongue is fine,” she managed to get out, wetting her suddenly dry lips.  
  
A broad smile from him, then, sails unfurled to snap in plentiful sunshine. “Let's make certain of that, shall we?”  
  
When he bent to kiss her, still holding her chin up with his index finger, she knew she ought to do something. Scream. Gasp. Slap him. Move over. Turn her head, fight him off, jump out of the bed, fling herself from the balcony, _anythin_ g except what she was doing, which was allowing her lids to flutter closed and her lips to meet his, giving in, for the third time.  
  
Gentle warmth, just the softest of kisses, nothing like what happened on the _Pearl_ , nothing like she imagined it would be. He was holding back. He was _pulling_ back. Her eyes flicked open to regard him quizzically, and he said “Hm,” deep in his throat and sat back, away from her.  
  
She sat up, then, her spine erect. “How dare you! I _knew_ I couldn't trust you not to - “  
  
“ _Now_ will you scream?” he said in a bored tone, as if he'd been expecting it all the while.  
  
“If you don't leave... at once!”  
  
“Soon as I get what I came for: an answer to my question.”  
  
“Which bloody _question_?”  
  
Another smile, but this one wasn't nice. It was bitter as shafts of sunlight pouring through a prison grate. He spoke through it, never taking his eyes off of Elizabeth. “Why... did you come... to save me?”  
  
She swallowed, her eyes inevitably drawn to that smile. “We... we all came, because we needed your help for our own purposes. And the _Pearl_. For the good of all. You know that.”  
  
“What I _know_ is that you're a damn good liar,” he whispered, leaning close again. “And I think it wouldn't kill you to admit you missed me.” He held his finger and thumb pinched together, beneath his chin. “Just a little?”  
  
“I...” She suddenly found her eyes wouldn't meet his face, and they fell to the open vee of his stained, tattered white shirt, the bronzed chest beneath, coasted with a sheen of sweat and dotted sparsely with curling black hairs. “Perhaps... a bit.”  
  
“You might even look me in the eye when you say it,” he said, and her eyes flew upward as her cheeks flamed. She was mortified by his knowing look. “There, now. Was that so hard?”  
  
“Was it... what?” she stammered, concentrating so hard on his face that her grasp on the conversation had lapsed. His eyes were beautiful in the dark, huge and close and speaking volumes on their own.  
  
“Hard,” he said, quietly.  
  
“...Was what hard?”  
  
“Elizabeth, if I wanted to talk to Cotton's parrot, I could have stayed aboard ship.” He regarded her through narrowed eyes, thoughtfully. “Now where were we? Oh, yes. You couldn't say if it was hard or not.” A naughty twitch of his lips, and she knew enough to at least blush at the remark. “Would you like to find out?”  
  
“No, thank you, seeing as I'm to be married,” she said in a flat voice, amazed that she'd recovered fast enough to speak.  
  
“Shall I visit again after the wedding, then?” He moved toward her, just a bit, and she once again found herself devoid of air in her lungs as he drew closer. “Though I must say, it might be easier without Will frittering about always asking stupid questions.”  
  
“There will be no more _visiting_ ,” she said firmly, facing him eye to eye as he lay next to her.  
  
“So if I come back, you'll scream?”  
  
“Certainly.”  
  
“Well then, for both our sakes, answer my question promptly.”  
  
She exhaled a sigh of frustration. “I told you we _all_ came because - “  
  
He lay a finger on her lips, then. “I already heard that answer. I want to know why _you_ did. And I want to know why you haven't screamed. There's a dangerous pirate in your bed, Elizabeth - aren't you frightened? Or have you become so accustomed to facing death and doom that _I_ no longer scare you?”  
  
She reached up to pull his hand away. “You're wrong about that. You never scared me.”  
  
He frowned, looking disappointed. “Not at all?”  
  
“Maybe a little,” she conceded, more for his pride than any deep regard for the truth.  
  
“Oh - good. I was beginning to think I'd lost my touch,” he said, flexing the fingers of the hand she had pulled from her lips, the hand she still held in hers. “Now - the other?”  
  
She sighed again, letting go of his hand as though it were a hot coal. “Are you going to continue to ask until you get the answer you want? What would you like me to say? I could say any number of things, and they'd all be lies.”  
  
“Except for one.”  
  
She rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Very well. I suppose the world's a little more interesting with you in it. There. Are you satisfied?”  
  
His eyes glittered as he looked at her. “You know, that almost sounds as if you don't really mean it. _But_ \- “ and he reached out his arms to draw her into them - “it hardly matters, because even so, perhaps that still wasn't the answer I wanted.”  
  
Their gazes met and held, and perhaps that was why it seemed as though the room were spinning beyond him, when in fact he was guiding her onto her back and raising himself over her. “W-what answer _are_ you looking for?” she stammered as she realized, with a sort of exhilarating panic, that he was inching the hem of her nightgown up, bit by bit, to slide his palm along her thigh.  
  
It happened too fast to resist - his hand was suddenly between her thighs, and two of his fingers found their way between her folds - and she gasped when he stroked her once, boldly, and then withdrew his hand and closed her legs again.  
  
“This one,” he said, and buried his fingers in his mouth just as daringly. She gaped, fascinated and horrified, as he slowly pulled his fingers away from his lips, leaving them glistening, his eyes upon her all the while. “Scream, Elizabeth,” he whispered with a heavy note of warning. “And better hurry, because I liked that.”  
  
“That's...” _disgusting_ , she meant to say, but she couldn't form the word with him looking at her like that. So intensely hungry, as if he wanted to eat her or something... Then she put his action and her thoughts together and once again found herself speechless.  
  
“Are you still tongue-tied? 'Spose I'd better answer the other question for you - which was, since I'm sure you've forgotten by now - 'is it hard?'” He grasped one of her hands and brought it between them, pressing it flat against him, the steely heat of which she could feel even through his breeches. “The answer is: Oh, yes. _Very_.”  
  
The syllables left his lips silk-wrapped and serpentine, and she found their meaning - that he desired her, she concluded - equally tempting, and out of sheer curiosity to know the result she moved her palm and flexed her fingers against the hard evidence that her traitorous kiss hadn't turned him off of her at all....  
  
He groaned, his hips rocking forward as he pressed into her hand, and his head fell forward, too, his mouth coming to rest at the base of her neck. That reaction thrilled her, and she repeated the motion, more firmly, feeling his lips part as his hot breath rushed out against her bare skin. Blood rushed hot through her arms, her hands, her cheeks. Not shame; something far more perilous: power, pure and potent, the shaft of sunlight on her sword or the wood of the helm in her palm. Power to give and take, to steer, to change. She could control this, she could control him, herself... the possibilities began to rise like floodwaters, pouring in from every recess of her mind.  
  
“Damn it, Elizabeth...I told you, you'd better scream.... don't you understand? Otherwise... I could have you, right here in your safe maiden's bed, in your fancy house with the servants upstairs and your father down the hall, and your betrothed snug in his bed in town dreaming of your wedding. Scream, darling. Scream, and fast. Now... _now_...”  
  
And then his lips were upon hers, and she found herself so torn between curious anticipation and complete shock that screaming was the very last thing on her mind. The taste of Jack was flooding her, loosening all the bindings she didn't know were there, and when he explored her mouth greedily with his tongue she whimpered, her fingers curling into his shirt and the heat underneath. It was very hot in the room. Far too hot.  
  
He broke the kiss, breathing hard, as she was, and he opened his eyes to look at her, his eyes seeming to touch on each of her features, her eyes last of all.  
  
In answer she only lifted her mouth back to his and initiated another fierce, blindingly intense kiss, that left them both breathless and wrapped up in each other and it was only after a while had passed that she noticed her nightgown was bunched around her waist and Jack's hand was flat upon her abdomen, sliding steadily downward. When his palm brushed her curls, an involuntary shudder coursed through her middle, and she almost cried out for him to stop.  
  
But then, at the first touch of his calloused fingers to her weeping center, she _did_ cry out at the new pleasure of it, and he said sharply, “Sh! Now's the moment to be quiet. Bring the house down upon us and we're both in a pot of hot water.”  
  
She didn't know exactly what he was doing, but she felt his fingers and thumb slipping over her, deliciously, repeatedly, and her breath caught in her throat as she felt the urge to move against his hand.  
  
“ _Jack_...” she groaned lightly, feeling her thighs relax and spread of their own accord. “I can't just permit you to...what are we doing...?”  
  
“Ah, now she speaks,” he mused, sliding a finger against in her in such a way that her breath hitched on a near-sob. “And 'we' aren't doing anything... yet.”  
  
“Something's doing... something,” she argued between deep gasps of air, lifting her hips against his hand as he bent his head to her mouth again.  
  
“Oh? Good to hear,” he said against her lips. His motions sped up, became more deliberate, more confident, and soon he had her clinging to him, writhing against him, begging him wordlessly for release.  
  
“What's... happening?”  
  
“You tell me.”  
  
“I'm... I feel so strange,” she whispered brokenly. “What have you done to me?”  
  
“It's not done yet,” he answered, leaning forward to nudge her hair away from her ear with his nose. “But if you want to know what to call it, I suppose you could say...” and when he whispered a variety of descriptions into her ear... simple, tender, vulgar - words she'd only heard the servants and sailors use, words she'd heard but not used like _that_ , words that she'd told herself she didn't know or think of.... and he made sure to stroke one particular spot where she was scalding hot and throbbed for him, suddenly everything went totally to pieces and she squeezed his hand between her thighs as she nearly wept, her whole body shaking, the nails of her hands raking long, deep valleys upon his chest.  
  
When she recovered, opening her glazed eyes slowly, her chin raised and her lips spreading into a satisfied smile, she was surprised to see Jack suddenly squeeze his eyes shut, and tilt his head with a pained look. He withdrew his hand after a final, gentle stroke of his thumb. He was still.  
  
“What's wrong?” she asked in a gravelly whisper.  
  
He sighed. “I... when I decided to come here, I swore this was as far as I'd let it go.”  
  
She frowned at him. “And now... so? What?”  
  
He groaned softly, hanging his head so that locks of his hair tickled her shoulders. “So... now... I ought to stop. Maid that you are... it's too messy. Too dangerous.”  
  
“You mean for me?”  
  
“Well... for you, _too_ ,” he replied, furrowing his brow.  
  
She exhaled in a scoff. “Well, that figures. You _would_ only consider yourself.”  
  
He rolled his eyes, and then rolled his body off of her onto the bed beside her, flinging an arm dramatically over his forehead. “Elizabeth, try not to be an idiot.”  
  
“Well, what am I supposed to think?”  
  
“Think, period,” he said, punctuating the two words with the fingers of his hand raised pointedly in the air. “Think carefully. I swore off swiving virgins a long time ago, and with damn good reason.” He sighed again, and it was almost a groan, as he kneaded his temple with his fingers in frustration. “I can hardly believe I'm even thinking of doing it again.”  
  
Something about his tone stirred her deeply; she realized it was the hint of a challenge, one that she could hardly refuse. She wanted to make Jack Sparrow forget himself, forget silly pretenses of courting, forget whatever he'd sworn to do or not to do. She also knew it was probably wrong, would probably cause loads of trouble, and could potentially ruin everything.  
  
But she just couldn't resist.  
  
She rolled over and draped herself over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin clear down to her toes. Very slowly, deliberately, she lowered her head and pressed a kiss to his chest where the shirt exposed his skin. She felt him hold his breath. She parted her lips and tasted his skin with her tongue; he exhaled on a deep groan.  
  
“Elizabeth,” he said, “forget all those romantic notions I've a feeling you're nurturing somewhere. It would change nothing. It's several hours of _me_ \- and you know what I am - in your bed, in your body, to both of our mutual satisfaction.”  
  
She smiled against his chest, then tasted him again, drawing her tongue in a line that followed the open vee of his shirt. Another hitched breath from him.  
  
“Think about what you've saved for dear Will. Kisses, places, maidenhead, perhaps? Think, now. Don't be brash - this can't be... _undone_ ,” he groaned as she unfastened the buttons of his shirt, following them with her lips and teeth.  
  
Will. At the thought, she stopped; she frowned. Of course she'd _meant_ to save all those things for him. It just didn't seem to be working out that way. Because she'd temporarily lost her mind.  
  
Dear Will. She closed her eyes and pictured him. She was going to marry him, not Jack. She thought of him waiting for her at the altar, being brave for her all those times during their adventures, kissing her hello. Kissing her goodbye. She _did_ love him, but she was at a loss to explain how things had become so far gone with Jack... it was beyond her control, almost. Jack wasn't handsome, he was strangely beautiful, and there was this savagery about him, the sense of the raw and untamed. The wild; and yet he thought, he spoke, he was cunning and wise at times, and he seemed to know her better than she knew herself. All of those things seemed to reach something elemental within her, something primal she was helpless to ignore. But Will... she loved him. She would set apart something of herself, only for him.  
  
“No more kisses,” she whispered to Jack. “What happens between us... however far it goes, you're right... it's not love.”  
  
“Fair enough,” Jack said. “Promise my lips are sealed far as kissing. Or yours are, or something.”  
  
They stared at each other for a moment. A bargain had been struck. They'd stopped competing for the upper hand, if only for the moment... she knew he wanted her, and now he knew she wanted him, too... a terrifying revelation, effectively stripping them naked though they still wore their clothing; it had been so long since they'd spoken as equals, stopped advancing their own agendas, that upon finding themselves in accord, they were momentarily dumbstruck.  
  
Elizabeth recovered first. “Jack, I... don't know what to do.”  
  
“I _know_ that. Will you give me a bloody minute?” he said as though he'd just been about to spring into action - whether he really had been or not. He shrugged off his shirt, and he winced at the sting of her nail marks across his rib cage. She saw the red marks she'd left even through his shirt, and drew in her breath, looking at his face.  
  
“Sorry,” she said.  
  
“No, you're not,” he replied with a lopsided smile, reaching out to pull her nightgown over her head and toss it aside, exposing her completely to his eyes. She couldn't miss the hunger in his expression... he looked at her, _really_ looked, feet, calves, stomach... his eyes seemed to narrow appreciatively as he drew the backs of his fingers over her chest and breasts, brushing a thumb across her nipple which made her give a small gasp, and then he found one of her hands and pulled it back toward his lap.  
  
“Now you,” he said, and waited to see what she would do. She peered at him curiously, at first, and then got onto her knees and crawled the very short distance toward him, reaching her hands for his chest.  
  
“I want the story of these,” she said, brushing her thumbs over his bullet scars.  
  
“Perhaps someday. Not now.”  
  
She bent to kiss them, then, first one, and then the other... Jack looked puzzled when she glanced up at him - perhaps because no woman had ever done that before? And she _had_ said this wasn't love, but weren't they in deep waters if it turned out to be...  
  
And as far as deep waters went, she steeled herself for the heretofore undiscovered country of what lay beneath a man's breeches; with unsteady fingers she unfastened Jack's, hearing him draw in his breath. When she had undone them he exhaled, perhaps relieved that she'd succeeded, but when she began to explore him with her fingers, his breath caught again. She had a fairly good notion of what a man _ought_ to look like, but never thought about how hot his skin would be, how firm, how responsive to her touch.  
  
“All right, that's enough,” he said quietly after a moment. He got up and divested himself of the breeches entirely, turning back around to find her eyes fixed on him, eagerly moving up and down his now-naked form. She was so curious about him... she had wondered if he were olive-skinned everywhere or simply bronzed by the sun, and she noticed he seemed to be evenly brown... her mouth went dry and she swallowed as she took in the full sight of him, the masculine narrowing of his hips and the dark trails of hair and the gentle peaks and valleys of sinewy muscle...It was very hot in her bedroom; how had it grown so hot? She was pulled from her thoughts by his voice. “Elizabeth,” he was saying, and she finally looked up and met his gaze. He smiled a knowing smile, before indicating the door with a tilt of his head. “By the by, does your door lock?”  
  
She felt her cheeks heat as she realized she hadn't even _thought_ about that... had she taken leave of her senses entirely? “This is utter insanity,” she whispered. “It's the end of all if someone should wake...”  
  
“Do you expect anyone to? Your father?”  
  
“Insensible; brandy and exhaustion.”  
  
“Ladies' maid?”  
  
“Not at present.”  
  
“Other servants?”  
  
“Ancient, deaf, and across the house. They even slept through my kidnapping two years ago.”  
  
“Then it stands to reason if we're quiet, they'll sleep through this, too, won't they? But don't make excuses, Elizabeth; risk there may be, but if you're harboring doubts, speak up.”  
  
Though it was madness, she looked at him and gave a nod toward the door, saying breathlessly, “Turn the key.” The answering look in his eyes made her shiver despite the heat, and when she heard the dull _click_ of the crude lock she shut her eyes tight. She had done it, now. No going back.  
  
_  
_


	3. Chapter 3

She reached out her arms and he fell into them, bending his head to kiss her before he remembered their accord. She turned her face a little, but he might have kissed her anyway if he’d really wanted to. He didn’t press it, and instead propped himself on his elbows atop her, saying with a dangerous smile, “Spread your legs for me, darling.”

Spread her legs _for him_... she nearly shuddered at the indecency of it, of Jack saying those blunt words to _her_ , so quietly, so sincerely, knowing she would do it – no force needed, no more seduction required than those words, now, for he’d been seducing her bit by bit since they’d first met. She found herself eager to obey his urgent whisper, watching his face to see he had a row of tiny sweat droplets above his left brow, and she wondered if it were because of the heat or because he was actually in pain from wanting her. When his forehead fell close to her, she gave into the instinct to smooth the droplets away with her lips and tip of her tongue.

“This is it, now,” he said through gritted teeth, forming the words against her chin, as he worked his way between the folds of her entrance, his muscles tense as though he were resisting an instinct. “No turning back.”

“I don’t want to turn back,” she confessed, and her palms slid down over his moist back, over the few scar ridges there. She was tense, too, but for a different reason, she had never felt anything there, and he was stretching her sort of unpleasantly. Then she felt the pads of his fingers against her again, coaxing that spark into a flame again, and she was still a little ashamed at how good it felt.

Her hips were soon undulating with him, and he rested his forehead against her chin as he moved his fingers over the slippery bit of flesh that seemed to be the key to getting her to melt for him. And she was melting, too, she could feel her moisture on his hand and her lips parted against his forehead, opening and closing in silent gasps as he stroked over her repeatedly.

“Oh, God,” she was barely whispering, “Jack, why does it... I can’t...”

“Shh, yes, it’s supposed to be like that,” he reassured her, lifting his head to look at her face. He must have taken her glazed look as a sign that she was ready, and he rocked against her. She started a bit from the pain and he drew back, saying, “All right, all right... little bit more.”

She gasped as he pressed firmly, and she suspected he was nearly coming apart from the strain of holding back, sweat pouring from his brow, every muscle pulled taut, and then something gave and her gasp became a small sob, just one, and then he was sliding inside, slowly, all the way to the hilt.

It hurt. There was no denying it, though she tried, and it was that more than anything that forced a tear from her eye. Ashamed, she squeezed her eyes shut, her jaw clenched. Jack was huge and hot inside of her. The delicious pleasure of his touch had changed into this strange throbbing ache, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked it. “Is... is it over now? Is it... done?” she asked.

“No, bugger it all,” Jack said ruefully. “Open your eyes, first.”

“Will that... help?”

  
”It’ll help me feel like less of a bastard.”

She did so, surprised to see him so close, looking at her almost tenderly. He had promised he wouldn’t kiss her, but then he was closer and closer, his mustache brushing her lips, and her lips parted of their own accord, and she was astonished to realize she was dying to have him kiss her again, and she lifted her chin in a wordless plea, and then the promise was thrown to hell and he was kissing her, roughly and deeply, drowning her in sensation and warmth.

So much for their accord.

It had lasted all of five minutes, she guessed; then she forgot about whatever they’d agreed it was or wasn’t and kissed him back with a groan, winding her fingers in his matted hair to hold him to her.

When she felt him move inside, she made a sound of surprise into his mouth, and he gave a little groan in response, reaching a hand down to spread her thighs farther apart. He withdrew and then returned, and her eyes shot open at the newness of that feeling. Her head fell back, breaking the kiss, and her eyes fluttered closed.

She didn’t protest the kiss, the dissolution of rules and order, as he pulled back and pushed forward again, and her heels brushed the backs of his thighs. “You can move, too, you know,” he whispered to her, in a strained voice.

She did, lifting her hips to meet his as he plunged again, and this time something different happened – something sparked to life with a throb, a jolt of energy from where he met her inner walls – her back arched and she cried out, and her eyes shot open again. She instinctively moved to repeat it, shocked when she received the same rush of strange pleasure. “What... what is that?” she breathed.

“Don’t know, exactly,” Jack murmured, supporting the curve of her back with his palm. He drew her against him again. “It’s a gift.”

“Thank you,” she said to no one in particular, catching the edge of Jack’s earlobe with her teeth.

“Ready for more, now?”

He must have known the moment she completely gave in, because he would have felt it everywhere. Her legs stretched and relaxed, her feet locked together around his hips. It was so damned hot. As she moved underneath him, sweat-soaked strands of hair were pasted to her flushed cheeks, her brow was knitted, her eyes were shut tight, and her chin was lowered almost to her chest as he pushed her back against the pillows. She heard herself whimper and swallow.

Hot. So hot. She was perspiring across her stomach, her arms, everywhere Jack had touched. His hands were guiding her hips up and down, and his breathing was harsh and ragged now, so much so that she opened her eyes to look at him, and found him looking back.

“Too hot...” she murmured, wiping sweat from his forehead with her thumb.

“’S the bloody Caribbean,” he whispered on air alone, no voice at all, nothing left.

She looked at him; laid her hot, sweating palm against his cheek. “Is this... how it always is?”

“Course not,” he said, with a laugh that died as she ran her tongue along the edge of his jaw in a seductive line. It must have undone him so that he forgot – only for a moment – that she was a virgin and he ought not to close his eyes and draw back and drive into her with force. She cried out, her nails lodging in his shoulders.

His eyes flew open. “I hurt you,” he said, and it was almost an apology.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, but she shook her head, very slowly, twice.

She was lying; he probably knew it, too. They were folded up together against the smooth wood headboard and there was no room to move or breathe. “Turn with me,” he said, and pulled her against him as he rolled on his side and rested his back against the pillows.

She settled against him again, her elbows against his chest, and wasted no time in picking up where they had left off, a gentle up and down, a pitch and roll. It was new and strange and still not exactly pleasurable – not like before – but it didn’t hurt too much, either. Her mind wandered as she sought refuge from the distraction of the stretching pain... Jack was here, beneath her hands, looking for all the world like he was in heaven and hell at once. She suppressed a grin to know she was responsible for such an expression, such loss of control on his part... a man who so loved to orchestrate situations, people, the vagaries of life itself, was at her tender mercy, and it made her feel even more powerful than wielding a sword.

Soon Jack was tipping her backward again, across the bed sideways, and that part of the bed was still cool and so she sighed as he braced his arms on either side of her – catching her hands, and holding them fast against the bed – and then he stilled, as though waiting for her response.

She flicked her eyes open briefly, glancing up at him. The frustration was plain on his face, his brow knitted, his lips parted to draw ragged breaths, beads of sweat still moistening his brow.

“Go on,” was all she said, though she didn’t know what she was giving him permission to do. It didn’t matter.

Another deep thrust and her head slipped off the end of the bed, her mouth falling open as she cried out a near-sob, and he stilled. She opened her eyes when nothing happened. He was looking down at her, a little wide-eyed.

She realized he’d finally remembered _where_ they were – he was a pirate in the Governor’s own house, for crying out loud – and literally, one more noise from her could wake someone and ruin them both. Well, she’d be ruined. He’d be hanged.

“Jack...” she whispered. “It’s all right to get it over with. I’ll survive. I won’t scream.”

There was a moment’s pause, but he gave no false apologies, made no pretense of making sure she meant it; in another moment he’d driven himself deep, and bent over her, whispering in her ear something like _I’ll have you scream next time,_ and she thought, _There’s going to be a next time?_

She thought also – with the danger of getting caught – that that was where Jack lived, on the edge, and that he’d taught her to love it there, too. As he moved inside her, it was neither the overwhelming pleasure of earlier nor the pain, but somewhere in the middle, and she was content to be led. She was attuned to him, to his crests and valleys, to his breathing, and so she knew when the steep edge he found himself upon was weakening, and when the ground seemed to be falling out from underneath him, his thrusts no longer sure, his grip on her thigh tight and panicked.

He was losing it, he was losing control and she had done it, she, a skinny English girl turned pirate, and the knowledge burned through her, wildfire in her veins; she caught his face between her hands, a new determination yielding her strength. “Jack...?”

His eyes found hers; his lids lowered. “Yes,” came his strained whisper, “only me. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she whispered back, feeling as though she were going to float out of herself, no longer the same. “It _was_ you I wanted.”

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder with a groan. “Again...”

“Hm?”

“Say it _again_ ,” he hissed in a tortured voice, his hand leaving her thigh to cup her waist, drawing her against him tightly, repeatedly.

“I wanted you... wanted you, Jack...”

“ _Again_.”

“You. Wanted you.” She pressed lightning-quick, fervent kisses over his ear, sweeping over a lock of his hair in her haste. “Wanted you back, needed you back, _needed_ you...”

A frantic, pleading noise from Jack, one that rose in pitch as his desperation grew... _mmmm_... his lips were at her collarbone, he was begging her wordlessly to release him from needing her, and she didn’t know what else to do to help him other than to lock her forearms around his neck and pull him closer. She found his lips with hers. There were no more rules, nothing to guide them in this, and she kissed him with everything she felt, giving him his answer, the only way she could. His tongue swept her mouth deeply, completely, and then he was shaking hard, his cheek pressed against hers, his breath hot and uneven in her ear as he suddenly removed himself from her, his hip pressing into her thigh. Her own sweat poured down the backs of her thighs and calves, as her hair spilled over the side of the bed toward the floor, a weighty waterfall.

She wasn’t sure what the noise was that she heard over the blood pounding in her ears or Jack’s deep groan and low murmur, and as her senses slowly returned she realized it was coming from outside, from the sky and the air and sea.

It had begun to rain.

Elizabeth lay on her side, eyes open, watching the storm’s wind move the curtains, having her own solitude by turning her back to Jack, a sort of defense against the discomfort of sharing her bed. She also knew it wasn’t his mere presence that caused her retreat; she stared blankly into the dark, thinking a hundred things and trying not to think at all. Her hair lay in wet strands across her forehead and left ear and curled against her neck.

“You sleeping?” Jack said after a good many minutes had passed; she closed her eyes and considered feigning sleep. “Elizabeth?”

“No,” she replied, and she felt him rise up behind her, peering down at her in the dark. Outside the rain continued, whispering _shhhh_ as her thoughts and feelings swirled in turmoil. _I’ve done it. I’ve given myself to Jack. Here in my own bed._

“Pain?” he said, and trailed a finger along her hairline.

“No,” she lied.

“Guilt? Regrets?” Jack said, and there was an edge to his voice; she couldn’t tell if it were humor or fear.

She didn’t answer, but opened her eyes, staring ahead again. What did it mean to feel badly about having done what she needed to do at the time? And why was it the second time, at least, that she asked herself that question, where Jack was concerned? _Fool_ , her brain whispered. _You can’t puzzle out madness with logic_. She wondered what time it was. She didn’t think it was a good time to ask the hour. Was he mad, or was she?

“Want me to go now?” he said, and his voice was quieter, more accepting.

“No,” she said again, without hesitation, and turned her head to look up at him. He dipped his head and kissed her, slowly, apologetically. When he moved away, she sighed.

“Guilt and regrets aren’t the same, I don’t think,” she whispered to him.

“No?” said Jack, and the way the skin around his eyes crinkled made her think he was laughing at her.

“Regret is when if you had it to do over again, you’d do something differently,” she said. “Guilt means you’ve done something that makes you feel terrible.”

“For as long as you let it,” Jack amended. “And which feeling are you feeling, at the moment?”

She opened her mouth, but realized she hadn’t formed an answer; she looked away from his eyes, tried to turn her back again, but he caught her and turned her to face him. He wouldn’t let her hide from this.

“How can I...” She swallowed, looking down again. “How can I have wanted this, and still love him... still marry him? It’s... depraved, isn’t it?”

Jack grinned. He _would_ be thrilled to hear of her depravity.

“Yes,” Jack replied, bending to brush her lips with his again. “But depravity’s only your pirate side rearing its head.”

“Is _that_ what that is?” Elizabeth said with feigned curiosity, smiling to one side as she felt Jack begin to stir against her leg. He kissed her again, deeply, but nothing more developed. He seemed exhausted, and told her so by lying back on the pillows.

“Does that mean you have an un-depraved side, then?” she asked, curling beneath his arm. “Does your good side leap up and frighten you every once in a while?”

“Rarely, but yes.”

“You’ve had attacks of generosity, to go with all the thieving?”

“Certainly.”

“For example?”

“For example... er... I... gave a woman a very valuable pearl, once.”

Elizabeth sighed, curling her legs around one of his. “Tell me the story.”

Jack seemed to roll his eyes. “Don’t suppose we can talk about something else? Doesn’t it seem rather silly to talk about some old pearl and another woman when we’re... here... like this?”

She traced the curve of his cheekbone with her finger as she considered his question. “No. I don’t mind, as long as it’s... true.”

At the word ‘true’ Jack burst out laughing, and she punched him in the side, which only made him laugh harder, until Elizabeth suddenly whispered, “Shh! For goodness’ sake, you’ll wake someone.”

Jack did manage to cease laughing and regarded her with a withering look. “Elizabeth, if we didn’t wake anyone _before_ -“

“Don’t tempt fate. Hush. No, don’t hush – tell me the story.”

“Elizabeth-“ Jack shifted, turning toward her, reaching out a palm to smooth hair away from her face. “I meant it when I said this wouldn’t change anything. You can’t expect-“

She gritted her teeth. “I haven’t asked for a marriage proposal, Jack, just one bloody-“

“That’s good, then, since you rejected my last one. On the _Pearl_ , remember? Said I was too dirty for you, or some rot like that.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips, even as she dragged a palm across his bare chest, making him grin. “You _could_ use a bath. If there were no one in the house I’d have the bath filled and... toss you into it and... “ Jack’s brows rose, and Elizabeth’s face heated. “... hold you under until you were clean. You’d probably come out a different color entirely.”

“Sea water’s better for you, if you ask me, and _that_ I’ve had enough of recently. If you’re interested, I can take you down to this deserted little cove where the water’s shallow and you might even take a bath there. Splash around a bit. In the altogether, if you like. Lots of fun.” Jack’s eyebrows leapt up and down in amusement as he reached for her shoulder, caressing her soft skin with two fingers, moving steadily toward her breast.

Elizabeth had, for a second, a mental image – some secluded beach, rocks, the two of them – and then she realized he’d successfully misdirected her and she’d forgotten about the story. “Jack, I want you to tell me that story. Just the one.”

Jack snatched back his hand, jabbing a finger in the air for emphasis. “Oh, ho. It always _starts_ with one story. Then another, and another... Lizzy, my past is an endless pit. I don’t start talking about the past ‘cause I’d never finish.”

She contemplated this as a strong gust of wind coursed through the room, stirring the curtains and helping to cool the air. She glanced outside. It was still full night, with no hint of dawn. She turned back to Jack. “We’ve got time, Jack.”

“When?”

“Now. Till the dawn.”

“And then?” He looked at her, his eyes holding a wisdom that, for once, suited his years. She knew what he was saying; tonight was all they had.

“If... when... when we can.”

He smiled, propping himself on an elbow. “I’ll tell it, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” she replied, smiling, and pressed her temple to the pillow, never taking her eyes from him.

*

Having left the smugglers’ ship behind, on which Jack and Gibbs had booked passage for the few days’ journey to where Jack claimed his witch lived, Jack rowed upriver into the swamp, and as night fell, the high, piercing song of insects was the only sound that greeted them.

Gibbs was apprehensive; Jack couldn’t blame him. Tia Dalma didn’t live in a castle, exactly. But they wanted to see her, to talk to her, and so they would endure the ominous splashing of god-knew-what in the dark river near the banks, and row until they could see light.

It would be a small light, almost hidden among the trees, or perhaps united with the trees.

“She _lives_ out here?” Gibbs said after a while, when no more fishermen’s boats were tied to crude docks, and trees and darkness swallowed everything. There were no houses, no markets, nothing. “How does she live out here, I mean... what does she eat?”

“Something dark and sticky,” Jack murmured, half-listening as he searched the blackness along the riverbank, catching sight of a glow in the distance that might be a human dwelling. “Think we’re here.”

He tied up the boat at a dock so old and worn, mossy, that it had almost been reclaimed by the river. Jack stepped out, peering up at the structure that shed a sliver of light down on the bank, a light that flickered like candle flame. Then the light was moving, and Jack and Gibbs looked up to see a woman’s silhouette, the light behind her as she stood outside the hut, ten feet above them.

She was trim of waist, skirts flowing gently like river falls, all shadow. Generous curves at her bosom, and the small shoulders and delicate collarbone of a woman rose in outline above. “Jack Sparrow,” a woman’s rich voice said, lilting, indicating warmth and pleasure, but not surprise.

Gibbs raised an appreciative eyebrow at Jack. _Not bad_ , his expression said.

Then Tia Dalma turned and brought the candle in front of her, illuminating her coin-wide eyes, wild hair and weathered, natural garments, before she favored them with a full, delighted grin that exposed berry-black teeth. Gibbs’ eyebrows knitted and his lip curled as he winced.

“Come in,” she commanded, turning away from them to disappear inside.

Gibbs glanced at Jack as they climbed from the boat. “Six months in her bed, you said?”

Jack didn’t meet Gibbs’ gaze as they began to mount the steps. “In my defense, I hadn’t seen her in quite a few years, and I had been struck temporarily blind at the time.”

Gibbs harrumphed. “Were ye? Did she help ye?”

Jack shrugged as he reached the top. “Helped me pass the time till my sight came back.”

Inside the hut, the chill of night had yet to enter; Jack heard the sound of water bubbling, and yet could not see a fire, nor a pot. Gibbs stared up at the assortment of objects suspended from the ceiling; Jack found the only available seat, and sat.

“Brought you something, darling,” he said cheerily to Tia.

“I hoped you would,” she replied with a sultry smile.

Jack wasted no time in producing the leather pouch he had attached to a belt, and untied the drawstrings. He soon produced the large pink stone, cradling it in his palm before handing it over to Tia, who stared in wonder as she held the egg-sized pearl up to the candlelight.

“Beautiful,” she said reverently, examining it further, the light and dark rose swirls, the inner patterns, the coarse exterior. Suddenly her eyes turned suspiciously on Jack. “Dis is a most precious thing. Very rare. Where did you get it?”

Jack smiled broadly, spreading his hands in a nonchalant gesture. “Oh, you know... we were going about ordinary things, and it sort of... struck us as something you’d like.”

“Struck _me_ , as I recall,” grumbled Gibbs, touching a finger to a still-sore spot on his forehead, barely dodging a swinging jar as he took a few steps toward where Jack and Tia sat.

“My... associate, Joshamee Gibbs,” Jack mumbled as quickly as possible.

Tia looked up, warmly narrowing her eyes at Gibbs. “Jack, you brought a friend,” she said, a note of congratulations in her voice.

Gibbs regarded her skeptically. “Missy, Jack don’t have any friends.”

“I _also_ don’t have a ship,” Jack said, folding his hands and looking back and forth from Gibbs to Tia, who were sizing each other up with increasing suspicion. “Ladies. Gentlemen?” Two gazes found his again, and Jack continued. “I did hope you’d be able to tell me something about that, Tia.”

“Ah,” she said, comprehending, cupping the whale pearl in her palm and closing her eyes. “Hm... your ship. The _Black Pearl_.”

“That’s her,” Jack said, leaning forward eagerly. “Tell me. Tell me anything.”

But Tia was completely silent for a long moment, holding the pearl with her eyes closed, as though listening. Jack and Gibbs could hear nothing save for the crickets and frogs outside, and after a while had passed they glanced at each other uneasily. Gibbs made a fist and upended it near his chin. _Drunk_?

Jack shook his head hurriedly, and turned his eyes back to Tia. Her lips moved, slightly, and Jack leaned even farther forward, trying to catch words. Suddenly her eyes snapped open, wide, and Jack leapt back.

“A pearl,” Tia said.

Jack lifted a brow. “What? What about it?”

Tia shifted, arranging her skirts closer to her, propping her elbows on the table in a fashion that announced a story was about to be told. “Jack... do you know de legend of de cloud pearl?”

“’Fraid I don’t,” Jack said. “Nor do I particularly want to, unless it’s going to help me find my ship.”

“De cloud pearl,” Tia went on, notwithstanding Jack’s comment, “is a gem of heaven. A pearl, like dis,” she said, holding up the whale pearl, “but far, far more powerful. Blue. Blue like de Caribbean sea, blue and green, water and sky. And marked with a pattern like rows of clouds, inside, as though it hold a whirlwind. Few know of such a gem, but dey are said to exist, in the East. A pearl so precious, not even the whole Earth could be given as a price for it.” She swept away half the world with her right hand, four fingers together.

“De cloud pearl is a priceless t’ing.” Jack and Gibbs watched as she reclined in her chair, folding her arms. “Dey say... I do not know if it be completely true... dat whoever has a cloud pearl, possesses great power. And fortune. Even a humble man – “ She glanced at Jack. “-a man with nothing, but having done good, in dis life or a previous one – such a man, even he can rule the four corners of de world, having everyt’ing he desires, should he possess such a pearl.”

“I like the sound of that,” Jack said, dark eyes grown big and luminous.

“Do you?” Tia said sharply, fixing a knowing look on Jack. “Oh, but to do good deeds, Jack Sparrow. To t’ink of others besides yourself – dis is a virtuous man, dey say, who deserve such a pearl.”

Jack stared back, and there was silence in the hut for almost a minute. Then he said, “What’s this cloud pearl got to do with me?”

“I don’t know,” Tia said with a mysterious smile, turning to take several leaves from a bag suspended behind her. She rolled them between her hands, roughly, and then set them in a clay bowl, to which she lowered the candle flame. Smoke rose from the bowl, and she turned it in her hands, gazing at the burning leaves within. “Hmm,” she said.

“Hmm, what?” Jack craned his neck to see into the bowl. “What’s that?”

“A way of seeing,” she replied casually, still staring raptly at the charred leaves.

Finally, after long minutes had passed, she looked up at Jack, as though seeing him with new eyes. “Dey tell me, you will find such a pearl.”

Jack lifted a brow, absorbing the new information. He blinked at Tia. “Is that going to help me get my ship back?”

“Yes.” Tia’s eyes narrowed on him, impatiently. “Such a treasure could bring you anything you desired.”

“And where can I find this... pearl?”

“A place. Nearby, and soon. Port Royal, is de place I see. Many ships.”

Jack cocked his head with interest. “They told you all that, eh?”

Tia smiled as she replied, “Not in those words, but I understand what dey mean.”

“They say anything about a curse?”

Tia smiled almost madly, her eyes widening enormously. “A curse, you say?”

“Guess not,” Jack muttered, feeling silly. “So... let me see if I understand this. I’m to go to Port Royal – never mind that the Royal Navy’s hunting and hanging pirates in these parts – and look for this cloud pearl, or whatever. Any word on _where_ it is?”

“It will find you, Jack Sparrow,” Tia said, covering the smoking bowl with both her hands. “A cloud pearl, dey say, falls from de sky.”

“Falls, from the sky,” Jack repeated, feeling more confused than ever. “What, am I supposed to stand around the docks in Port Royal, holding out my hat out in the hopes this little gem’ll just fall right into it?”

Tia shrugged, placing the bowl away from her at the far end of the table. “Do what you choose. But remember, only a virtuous man can make use of such a pearl.”

 _Well, so much for that_ , Jack thought, refraining from rolling his eyes. He was about as far from virtuous as one could get. He got to his feet. “Well, thank you, love. You’ve helped me steer my course, as it were.”

“Jack,” she said suddenly, staring unseeing across the hut.

“Yes?”

“You must go alone.”

Jack and Gibbs shared another curious look, and then Jack turned back to Tia. “Alone? Where?”

“On your journey. You must go to Port Royal alone, if you wish to find what you seek.”

“Hm,” Jack said.

*

That night he and Gibbs slept on straw mats, under a thatched roof that covered a wooden structure attached to the hut by a series of rickety wooden steps. The chirping and croaking of surrounding wildlife was strange to them, and they struggled to sleep, both deep in thought.

“Jack,” Gibbs finally said.

“Hmm?”

“Ye mean to go?”

There was a pause, and insects buzzed and sang in the interim. “Yes, I s’pose I do,” Jack finally said, and it was quiet again for a minute.

Gibbs cleared his throat after some time had passed. “Do ye mean to... go alone, like the witch said?”

Jack considered this, rolling on his side and curling an elbow beneath his ear. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Back to Tortuga, first, and have to get me something that floats. Something small, even, couple of sails and a mast, seaworthy enough to carry me there. Myself, and maybe a friend.”

Gibbs made a grunting sound of comprehension, and there was silence again.

“It’s not true, you know,” Jack said after a moment or two had passed.

“Eh?”

“I’ve had friends, before,” Jack muttered. He was thinking of Bootstrap, of Captain Alberts.

Gibbs’ gray brows rose: _really_? “Where are they, then?”

Jack stared pensively up into the dark, dim air. “Don’t know. Far away. Or dead.” He turned over, wondering if Ana or Chao Quin would count themselves among his friends. Bootstrap would have, or at least, Jack _thought_ he would have, until push came to shove and pistols and lives were at stake. Bootstrap had been quiet eight years before, hovering around the fringes of the mob that mutinied against Jack. “Never said they were _good_ friends,” Jack mumbled almost against the mat.

“Is that counting lady friends?” Gibbs said with a teasing grin. “They can turn on ye right fast... if their affections sour for ye.”

Jack considered Queenie and Ana. He rather thought them capable of more loyalty than many men he’d known. “Women are tricky that way,” Jack said, “but, jesting aside, isn’t everyone?”

“I s’pose,” Gibbs reluctantly agreed. Then, after a pause, he went on, “We’ll always be pirates, us two, won’t we, Jack?”

“Aye, I expect we will.”

“Then I suppose you can always trust a pirate to be a pirate. Myself included.”

Jack smiled to himself. “I’ll remember that.”

Gibbs shifted onto his back, bones creaking and joints cracking. “Mercy, I ain’t slept on a still floor in ages.”

“Nor I. Prefer a nice floaty bed, meself. At least a hammock. You ought to see the cabin I had on the _Pearl_. What a cabin it was, too. All my books. Nice big bed. Space for my charts, right huge windows... I mean to have my ship back, I hope you know.”

“I know,” Gibbs said. There was another pause; then, “If ye feel like company-“

“I’ll know who to ask,” Jack said with another smile, and then there was quiet that stayed until the dawn.

*

 


	4. Chapter 4

The ship called as expected, and Jack and Gibbs were on their way back to Tortuga within a week, having spent a few days as Tia’s guests. She seemed pleased to have company, but after three nights of eating crab and strange greens from her garden, they were happy to be on their way.

Jack didn’t entirely trust her, either; Tia sought things he didn’t completely understand, and spoke in riddles and metaphors half the time. Puzzling out her predictions was half the battle. He thought it madness to set off for Port Royal with no more than “pearls falling from the sky,” but it was the sort of madness that appealed to him, and so he decided to go.

After all, it was a start. To a man who had nothing, hope was everything. That was what Tia had given him in return for that whale pearl: hope. Far beyond useful information, facts, weapons, was the hope, the idea that he might reclaim the _Pearl_ , that he might find out what had befallen Bootstrap, that he might get to shoot Barbossa himself. And then, there was always treasure. And the world at his feet, when he climbed the rigging of the foremast and hung like a simian from the yardarm, feeling the wind in his hands.

Yes, he would go to Port Royal.

He didn’t see any harm in Gibbs coming along – in fact, he rather liked the idea, despite whatever Tia had said. Jack had a habit of ignoring statements he didn’t like, for as long as he could. He figured he would scout the docks with Gibbs, looking for something easily commandeered and easily crewed by two men. It wasn’t the season for bad storms, so he needn’t worry terribly about being out in the open ocean. Something small, light. Even a fishing boat would do.

At the thought, he pictured Ana. Would she lend him hers? No, she’d said it needed repair; but perhaps, the three of them together... it was a thought. A new beginning, a new crew, if they’d have him. They arrived in Tortuga at sunset, and Jack convinced Gibbs to help him look for Ana in one of the many taverns available to them.

Jack strutted into the tavern; he swaggered to the bar; he doffed his hat to whore and respectable wench alike. He hadn’t even had any rum yet, and the spring was back in his step, and nothing could remove it.

Nothing, that was, except for the look on the face of one Gory Theodore Hamilton, who appeared out of nowhere, blocking Jack’s path while brandishing a pointy-looking sword, and twirling a torn piece of red fabric between two calloused fingers. Jack looked up in shock at Teddy’s face; his mouth was set in a grim sneer, and his eyes blazed with barely leashed anger.

“Think you have something that belongs to me,” Teddy said in a dangerously low voice, dangling the torn bit of Jack’s bandanna in front of Jack’s nose. “I’ll be wanting it back.”

“That’s funny, since you’ve got something of mine, too,” Jack said with a smile, plucking the fabric from Teddy’s hand. “There we are. Much better.”

“Where’s the whale pearl, Sparrow?” Teddy growled, and Jack noticed patrons had begun to give them a wide berth, while Gibbs was inching toward the door, behind them.

“Finders, keepers,” Jack said, eyeing the sword, the point of which soon nestled against his Adam’s apple. He swallowed, with some difficulty. “If you were careless with such a precious thing, it’s your loss, isn’t it?”

“I know you’ve got it,” Teddy said menacingly. “Hand it over.”

“Can’t, since I haven’t got it,” Jack replied, looking down the bridge of his nose at the sword, all the while feeling with his fingers behind him for something to use as a weapon.

“Then I’ll be taking its price from your gut,” Teddy hissed, slowly, twisting the point of the sword against Jack’s neck.

Jack’s left hand closed around a bottle; he wasted no time in catching it up and swinging it into Teddy’s temple, where to Jack’s surprise, it didn’t break, but Teddy shot sideways, the sword lowering, the bottle slipping from Jack’s fingers to fall with a thud on the floor. Jack seized the opportunity to turn and flee for the door.

Gibbs was at the doorway; he pushed open the door, and they dashed through. Behind them, Teddy was bellowing with rage, and getting rapidly to his feet.

“Split up!” Jack said to Gibbs as they jogged down the path.

“And go where?”

“We’ve got to get out of Tortuga. A boat, we need a boat.”

Gibbs leveled a sad gaze on Jack, stopping at the edge of the road that led to the docks. “Jack, you better just go on.”

Jack stopped, too, panting. “What? What do you mean?”

“Go get yer boat, Jack,” Gibbs said, drawing his sword. “Get out o’ here. Now.”

Jack glanced up at the rapidly approaching Teddy, whose sword was glinting in the moonlight. He clapped Gibbs on the shoulder. “Been nice knowing you, mate.”

“I’m not going to fight him, ye bleedin’ idiot,” Gibbs called as Jack took off. “Run, and luck to you!”

Jack could hear their shouted exchange as he rounded a curve in the road below the tavern. “Out of my way!” Teddy was yelling. “Or I’ll gut you along with him!”

“When you put it that way,” Gibbs replied, and stood aside.

But the ruse had worked; he’d bought Jack some time, and Jack was running as fast as his legs could carry him for the east end of the docks, where he hoped to find a boat he could sail alone.

As he dashed between the small groups of sailors, pirates and fishermen clustered near the docks, he considered turning and fighting; it wasn’t his favorite choice, generally, unless absolutely necessary. If he couldn’t escape Teddy, he would fight. He made a fast left, and ran out on a long dock that had two boats tied at the end of it; both about twenty feet long, with a mast, and a sail. Simple, but effective, Jack thought, as his eyes moved back and forth between the two boats. Shouts reached his ears from the road; Teddy was strong-arming his way through the crowd.

Both boats belonged to simple fishermen, in all likelihood, Jack thought, feeling a pang of guilt. He patted his stomach, and it went away, like indigestion. He would never know who the boats belonged to, not that it mattered, because he needed a boat _now_.

One of them might even have been Ana’s. The thought gave Jack pause, and he eyed both boats in the twilight, scrutinizing every detail. He didn’t know the name of hers... he’d no way of knowing... “Buggering hell,” he said, spinning in a circle on the dock between the two boats.

Jack’s eyes flicked back and forth between his choices; he considered tossing a coin, he knew he had a few shillings tucked away somewhere, but he’d have to search all his pockets, and he had no _time_. Teddy would spy him at the dock any minute.

He finally decided on a different tried-and-true method of deciding between two equal things; he wiggled a forefinger back and forth as he quickly recited the rhyme.

“Deck-a-doubly-deemsie,

bung-a-bubbly-beamsie, too,

But never trouble trouble

till the trouble troubles... _you_.”

Jack was left pointing at the boat on the right; the _Jolly Mon_ , its side read. Jack’s brows knitted in nervous indecision. The problem was, he could never remember if the ‘you’ was the trouble, or the ‘you’ was the one he was supposed to pick. _Bugger it all..._

 

“Jack Sparrow!” came an enraged roar from no more than thirty feet away.

“Captain, captain,” Jack corrected, quietly, as he leapt forward to untie the _Jolly Mon_ , stepping lightly aboard and clambering hurriedly up to unfurl the sail. “Now, captain of the... whatever.”

There was wind, that night, and as Jack’s newest acquisition slid immediately away from the dock, lurching a bit in the choppy water, Jack had the pleasure of waving goodbye to a furious Gory Theodore, who was running down the dock Jack had just left, to stand on the end, gaping in disbelief.

“Farewell, Teddy,” Jack called, hanging sideways from the mast, smiling, to an answering shout of threats to use his innards for various shipboard functions. “You shall always remember this as the day you _almost_ gutted, carved into, disemboweled, et cetera, et cetera... Cap’n Jack Sparrow.”

* * *

Jack gazed thoughtfully at the stars that night, but not for pleasure; other than his compass, which he didn’t trust, he had no other means of navigating. He steered the best he could, wondering what the hell he was doing, grateful that whomever he’d stolen the boat from had stashed a bit of water and provisions aboard.

He had been at sea a day and half when she started taking on water.

At first Jack thought it was the high waves; he hoped it was, and hope was his new thing. He examined the boat, and eventually tied himself to the mast via a twenty-foot line and swam around the side and back, underneath, looking for the hole. He swam under at noon, when the sun was overhead and penetrated the farthest into the water; he found the hole easily, which had been patched relatively well for a temporary measure, but simply would not withstand the open ocean.

By the time he climbed back aboard, he was fairly certain of two things: one, that the boat was almost certainly Anamaria’s, and two, that it was sinking. The second bothered him a great deal more than the first, and he wished for rum, even though he found himself feeling optimistic. He bailed water all afternoon – a losing battle – and sang a few songs while he did so, unsure why his spirits were not as dampened as the floor of his boat, his boots, or his breeches.

She was riding far too low in the water by midafternoon, and Jack was bailing faster, to no avail. His good mood flagged, just a bit, as he threw the bucket aside, and it was then that he looked up and saw land. A harbor.

“Land?” he said to himself, shading his eyes. “Land! That’s land!”

He danced around a bit, hopping on one foot while holding his hat with his other hand, but the water level in the bottom made that difficult, and so he decided to climb the mast.

From atop the yardarm, he confirmed that the harbor was, in fact, Port Royal. He’d made it. He tossed his hat gently into the air, nearly toppling from the yardarm as he leaned out to catch it, and then replaced it on his head.

He couldn’t explain the strange euphoria that came over him as he sailed into Port Royal on the turquoise waters, beneath the blazing sun, the breeze on his face and neck and winding between his fingers like a woman’s hair. He ought to have been panicked, distraught, overwhelmed, but a sense of peace seemed to pervade his being. It would be all right, all of it; he would regain his ship, he would seek treasure, he would have his freedom. It began right then, his journey toward freedom; there, on the yardarm of a sinking boat, Jack Sparrow was the most optimistic he’d ever been in his life. The world was spread before him, and it sounded like Tia’s murmur and Alberts’ laugh, smelled like salt and Gibbs’ rum-splashed hand. The path before him was beautiful and dark as Easter’s eyes, and kind as Ana’s arm around his neck. Fortune would smile on him; he knew it, knew it in his soul, and as the boat went down, Jack’s spirit swelled and lifted like the sail, carrying him forward and upward. He wasn’t sailing; he was flying, right until his toe touched the solid wood of the dock.

* * *

“That’s a beautiful story,” Elizabeth said, her cheek hot against the bare skin of his breast. Jack said nothing; after a moment, she lifted her head to see him looking contemplative, his expression far away. “Jack?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit ironic? I mean,” and Elizabeth shifted to look down at him, his arm tightening around her ribs, “you came here tonight, demanding to know why I came to save you from the Locker. And instead, you’ve just told me how you came to save _me_.”

“I suppose I did,” he said with a small smile that told her she’d gotten the point. “Shame I never did get my hands on that cloud pearl.”

Elizabeth frowned. “What do you mean?”

Jack looked at her from the edges of his eyes. “Never got it. Never was any.”

“But Jack,” Elizabeth said, thinking the story over, “I think it’s like you said, Tia talking in riddles. You came to Port Royal, and found what – or _who_ \- led you to your ship. That’s your cloud pearl.”

“Hm,” Jack mused, turning toward her. “You know, I think you may have something there.” Elizabeth smiled in satisfaction, brushing her lips over his. Her content expression evaporated when he went on to say, “I guess my finding Will was sort of a lucky thing, wasn’t it?”

At the sound of Will’s name, Elizabeth’s demeanor changed; she suddenly felt dirty, the spots of blood on the inside of her thighs tepid and sticky. There was a dim, uncomfortable silence.

Jack watched as she drew back, slowly. “There’s your irony, Elizabeth – without me, you and Will would never have had the temerity to admit your feelings. He’d still be sighing after you from afar.”

She glared at him. “And I, for him.”

“Really?” Jack said, sounding expressly bored, tracing a finger down the center of her bare chest, over her belly. She swatted his hand away as he gave a bitter chuckle. “And you never even thanked me.”

“Oh, go ahead and laugh,” she snapped at him. “You don’t understand anything at all.”

“Don’t I?” Jack rolled to face her, eyes bright with emotion. “Whatever happened to, ‘I’ll not dishonor him’? Hm? What happened to, ‘No more kisses’?” He leaned close, whispering close to her parted lips, “What’s next?”

Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, painfully; it was shame, and she wanted to hate him for it. She jerked back from him. “This is not a game, Jack. I do love him. Don’t you dare lie there and think you’ve won.”

Jack’s smirk told her he thought exactly that; she wanted to slap the smug look from his face, but caught her fingers in a fist instead, clenching it at her bare hip.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said through gritted teeth, staring him down. “What would _you_ know of love?”

A few seconds passed while Jack absorbed her words; in the next instant he was atop her, his hands pinning her shoulders against the bed, his mouth open, teeth bared as though he wanted to say something, to yell something at her, but he couldn’t seem to find his voice. She fought against his grip, and he finally let go, roughly, and rolled away from her. A rustle in the sheets a moment later told her he was getting out of her bed. He was leaving.

The rain had stopped. It was nearly daybreak, and birds began to sing outside, emerging from hiding during the storm. She ought to let him go, end this madness now.

“No,” she said suddenly, and her passions got the better of her as she caught his arm and pulled him back into bed, and in another second his eyes had gone soft and he’d wrapped his arms around her and captured her mouth in a bruising kiss.

“What’s it to be, love,” he said, kissing her chin, her jaw, her ear. “In or out?”

“Don’t go yet.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to.”

“You always get what you want?”

“Do _you_?”

“Eventually.” Jack grinned, stroking calloused fingertips over her breasts, possessively, until he bent to catch her lips again.

A noise from downstairs startled them apart; Elizabeth stiffened in fright. “Someone’s awake. The servants. Ann will come up to light a fire.”

Jack did not argue, for once, and they both bounded from the bed. He tugged on his breeches hastily, while she found her wrapper and threw it around her, holding it closed with weak-feeling fingers. He buttoned his shirt with one hand as she tossed him his boots, one after the other, and he struggled into them as she grabbed her hairbrush and ran it through her tresses until they didn’t look like they had been mussed by a man. She then threw the brush aside, turning back to Jack.

He was halfway to the balcony doors, early light filtering in across the wooden floor as his boots crossed it, when she stopped him. “Jack,” she said.

He turned back, smiling a contented half-grin as he began to swagger back past her dressing table, fingers ghosting across the back of her hairbrush. “Yes, darling?” His expression said he had gotten what he wanted, and then some, she could tell.

“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” she breathed, and in two strides he’d crossed the room and caught her up in his arms again, kissing her for all he was worth.

“Goodbye, Lizzy,” he whispered, and extracted himself from her embrace. “You do know where the _Pearl_ is. Not that I expect – you know.”

“Of course.” There was a moment’s pause before she followed him to the balcony, and watched as he swung a leg over, dropping down bit by bit, a hand here, a foot there, until he’d landed in the flower bed near the drive.

There was a knock at her bedroom door. “Miss Elizabeth?” came the servant’s voice.

“In a moment, please! I’m not dressed!” she called back, turning quickly around to see Jack below her.

It struck her, as she looked down at him, that if she jumped straight down, he could catch her. Suddenly, another piece of his story fell into place. “Jack!” she whispered loudly, and his head snapped up, ten feet below her. “It’s me,” she insisted, leaning farther over the balcony rail than was prudent. “I fell from the sky, and you caught me! I brought you your fortune. If anyone’s your cloud pearl, it’s me!”

“Says the woman who sealed my fate,” he whispered back, cocking his head skeptically.

“Miss Elizabeth! Why, the door’s locked!” called Ann.

“Just a moment!” she said over her shoulder. “I’m right,” she whispered down to Jack. “It makes perfect sense. Admit it.”

Jack snorted. “The day I admit _you’re_ right, is the day I... carry you off to be my pirate bride.”

He’d meant it in jest, but it hung in the air between them, floating somewhere between earth and sky. The end of that sentence ought to have been the unlikeliest thing possible; and yet, with Jack, nothing was terribly unlikely, any more. She shook off the hypnotic effect of his joke-turned-oath, and crossed her arms across her chest.

“I’m right,” she insisted, smiling down at him. “You’ll see.”

Jack raised a brow, then lifted a hand touched it to his head in a mock bow. “Only time will tell,” he said slyly, and took a step backward. “Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

She watched him go for a few more seconds, and then hurried to close the balcony doors to shield him from view. After crossing her bedroom, she turned the key and unlocked the door, letting the other woman in.

“Mercy me,” said Ann, bustling in and heading for the fireplace. “What’s all this?”

“I must have turned the lock last night, without even thinking,” Elizabeth said, heading back to her bed. She was suddenly exhausted.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone!” Ann said, stirring the coals with a poker.

“Don’t be silly. Who would I be talking to?” Elizabeth said with a yawn, climbing into bed. It was then that she spied Jack’s hat, in plain sight on the floor in front of her bedside table. In one panicked motion she scooted up, extended a leg and kicked it underneath the bed.

“Who, indeed,” said Ann airily, standing up with a hand at her lower back, glancing over to see Elizabeth slipping beneath the sheets. “What, are ye still tired?”

“I’m not feeling well at all,” Elizabeth said, laying back on the pillows. “Don’t think I’ll be down to breakfast this morning.”

“Oh, dear me,” Ann remarked as she began to straighten the bedding. “Looks like you slept fitful this night.”

“Hardly slept at all. The storm,” Elizabeth said casually.

“Pity! Didn’t hear a thing.” Ann headed for the door. “Well, miss, I’ve got to tend to your father’s room. Get some rest then, dear.”

Elizabeth curled deep into the bed as the door closed, and she inhaled Jack’s smell from the pillows, from the bedspread. She wondered what his bed on the _Pearl_ was like, and promised herself she would not spoil the moment with thoughts of honor and duty and Will. There would be the rest of her life to think of Will.

She began to experience the feeling that Jack spoke of, when he said he floated, the future swollen with promise, blindingly bright, for that odd elation filled her as she settled into the bed. There was no time to reflect, to sort out her confusion, her sins, before exhaustion claimed her. As she drifted off to sleep, her sheets became lines of clouds, lifting her across an endless blue sky, and then they were sails, bearing her over a bright green sea. She was the cloud pearl, with a whirlwind within, falling through the air, turning and turning, rare and precious and carried by the wind.

**Author's Note:**

> (original 2007 end notes) A/N: Well, writing this has been quite an adventure for me. When I had some ideas back in April for a story where Jack and Elizabeth chase each other all over the world, I definitely had not pictured writing another novel-length fic. But I sort of fell in love with the idea of writing Jack an emotional backstory – emotional in the sense of not just birth and parentage and provenance but the journey Jack has taken with love and loss and friendships and that sort of thing, and how that might affect what has happened with our own dear Elizabeth. And then the amateur novelist in me just won’t fast-forward through certain things. 140,000 words later, “Pearls” is done.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who supported and encouraged me, especially lady_di75 who offered to beta-read at the beginning and had no idea what she was getting into, and all the Sparrabeth writers who’ve inspired me over the last year and a half to keep at it, and all the readers who actually come and read my stuff purely for their own enjoyment. Your encouragement and kind words have meant more than I can say. A special thanks also to friend and inspiration marston258, who has given me ideas over plates of Chinese food and while walking down the street, and who patiently listens to me babble incessantly about fic and fandom.
> 
> I have said before that I fear the fandom is fizzling – I see it in the less-trafficked pages, some waning enthusiasm, all of that. I think my concept of Jack and Elizabeth has nearly run its course (did I say that at the end of last summer, too? Ok, so take that with a grain of sea salt) but I still have an idea for a post-AWE, canon except for the baby, with an adventurous, more piratical Elizabeth, our hapless post-AWE Jack, and a mysterious amulet with mystical powers. Given all my other responsibilities, and my current lack of a reliable computer, and the potentially pear-shaped J/E fandom, I don’t know if it’s something I should launch myself into with my whole heart and soul the way I did Pearls.
> 
> Anyway, all thoughts are most welcome – I appreciate concrit in general, since I do hope to be some kind of non-amateur writer before I’m old and gray. I love my visitor’s map! If you enjoyed the series, whether from Texas or Taipei, Santiago or San Jose, or right around the corner in King of Prussia, PA, would love to hear a word of hello!
> 
> If you’re interested in commentary on any part or aspect of the series, that’s the sort of shameless self-indulgence I could embrace.
> 
> See you in the morning, shippers.
> 
>  
> 
> Lady P


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